


laburnum

by alpacas



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, but they're actually in a disney musical, everyone thinks they're in a serious political drama, original characters and fleshed out minor characters, pre-game worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 27
Words: 87,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11211024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: i'll stop the day; you'll rise again. [the life and death of ersa vanguardswoman, who befriended a prince and won him a throne.]





	1. one. (lost in time)

**Author's Note:**

> so i got so hyped by the idea of LarissaFae's 'Factions of the World' i was like, I GOTTA GET ON THIS TRAIN TOO. 
> 
> AND SO HERE I AM, BLATANTLY RIPPING HER OFF, hey larissa what up.

 

 

 

 

> _i tried to say_
> 
> _i miss you tonight_
> 
> _but they claim you've already died_
> 
> _but the truth —_
> 
> _is that we're lost in time._

 

**_one. (lost in time)_**

 

 

Ersa wakes up to the lighting of lamps and frightened whispers of the other women. A few are pulling on clothing and gathering at the doorway where Rana is standing. Rana is one of the Queen's handmaidens. Something is wrong.

Ersa sits up silently, shivering as her blanket drops away. The desert is cold at night, and the lowest levels of the Palace of Meridian are always cool and damp. She laces up her sandals and then stands to approach Aya. "What's going on?" she asks quietly.

Aya — Aydala — is much younger than she looks. She is Carja, and unlike Ersa she is a servant and not a slave, but she's alright: doesn't get arrogant like Rana and some of the other servants who try to hold themselves better than anyone else they can. "The Queen miscarried," Aya says, casting her eyes downward in sorrow.

Ersa imitates the gesture. It _would_  be sad, if it wasn't the Mad King's child — but she's not exactly in a position to make a stand about that, and Ersa immediately understands the tension in the room. The Queen Consort had only provided the Sun King one child in seven years, and the King was impatient for more sons. He wouldn't be happy with this news, and that would come down on all of them. "Had it quickened?" she whispers.

She looks up through her eyelashes as Aya shakes her head, her fair hair loose over her shoulders. "So maybe…"

"The Sun King knew she was expecting," Aya says, guessing what Ersa was about to suggest. "He _is_ the light of the sun," Aya whispers. Ersa doesn't know if she really believes that or if her subservient act is completely engrained. It doesn't really matter.

It will rain down on them, alright. Oh, the King couldn't care less about his slaves and serving girls, but his mood would spread through the palace, infecting everyone, and this room of women was as unprotected as it was possible to be. Ersa fingers the cuff on her wrist that marks her as a slave of the Sun King: heavy bronze, just loose enough to slide a thin cloth under. Just tight enough that it was constantly chafing her wrist raw. Rana departs the room with two of the other women.

"Will she be alright?" Things would get much, much worse if the Queen died and the Sun King needed someone to blame. Last time he had gotten ill, he had had five of his men and eight slaves sacrificed as punishment for the poison.

Aya lifts her chin towards the ceiling. Five stories of maze-like stone separates this room from the sky. "With the Sun willing, she will be."

Ersa should go back to sleep. She won't be called to help the Queen, she knows that much, and once dawn arrives, so will a long day of work. But the tension in the room is thick and sour. Fourteen women sleep in this barracks, and none of the others look like they're planning to sleep. The Freebooter in her tells her to rest while she can… but Ersa follows Aya to her bed, and sits with her there.

Aya had been born into palace servitude and knew no other life: she left the palace twice a week to pray at the Temple of the Sun, and once a year would travel as far as the Royal Maizelands for the harvest festival. Ersa pitied her, but it had been Aya, those first bad days of Ersa's captivity, who had taken her in and shown her the ropes. Aya was maybe a little simple, but she understood the Palace of the Sun.

 _It's not bad here,_ Aya had told her, that first week, when Ersa was still bruised and bloody from the Sun Ring, still standing tall and angrily meeting everyone's eye. _You just have to know the rules._ Ersa hated rules, on principle, but she has no intention of dying in Carja land. She'd learned.

Only about half of the Palace's servants were enslaved; the rest, like Aya, were free men and women, albeit the lowest on the Carja social ladder. There wasn't much distinction between the two classes, and slaves could reach much of the same success as freedmen. Tanama was a slave, and she was in charge of the Palace kitchens and all the freemen who worked in them. Another slave, Cair, was highly respected by all the servants as Prince Kadaman's steward. The servants all gossiped, and Ersa listened: many in the Sun King's court could only be counted on to harm or abuse them, but the crown prince was considered to be a fair man. No one had quite said it aloud where Ersa could hear, but she had the feeling that more than one person in the underbelly of the palace was counting the days until Kadaman ascended to the throne.

But not Ersa. She was counting the days until one thing, and one thing alone: the moment she arrived back home in the Claim. She missed home: the tundra, the mountains, the tall scratching grass and the smell of smoke and machine oil. She missed the feel of a weapon in her hands, the taste of burnt meat, the wetness of melting snow…

She missed her brother most of all, but didn't let herself think too much about him. Erend would be okay or he wouldn't. There was nothing she could do about it until she was free and home.

Ersa speaks to Aya on her bed for an hour or two, until the distant clanging of bells announce the morning has begun. A few of the other women have drifted back to sleep in the time, but all rise and begin to prepare for the morning. Some of the free women apply makeup. Ersa helps another slave fill the room's basin from the cistern at the end of the hall; then washes her own face in it. She runs her fingers through her hair, and that's as dressed as she'll get — she has no clothes but the tunic and leggings she also sleeps in.

Most of the women work in the kitchens or cleaning, a few as attendants to high ranking members of the court. But not Ersa. She was given a place of honor for her victory in the Sun Ring: manual labor, just like the men. She doesn't mind the assignment, really. She'd go bored and weak, dusting furniture and stirring pots. She spends her days hauling water up from the aqueducts, refilling cisterns and the pools on the roofs that warm water to be used for bathing and washing. The worst part is washing privvies — although there's a sick satisfaction she takes from knowing the Blessed Sun King shits like any man — but the best part is tending the gardens.

The entire Palace is ringed with mosaic pathways and promenades, surrounded by flowering trees and lush leafy bushes. Ersa had never really thought of herself as the gardening type, but she likes the smell of the dirt and plants, likes getting her hands dirty, likes the quiet she gets when she's pulling weeds. For all their peace and quiet — or probably because of it — no one really travels the garden paths. Only a few times in the months Ersa has been here has she been warned to leave because a member of the royal family was approaching; most days, she can take her time. As long as it looks like she's working, no one really checks up on her. There aren't many overseers in the Palace, and most of the servants are like Ersa: only in it for themselves.

Today especially seems like a good day to be scarce. All morning, hauling water, the palace had been deathly silent, courtiers and nobles making themselves scarce, soldiers standing at better attention than usual. As far as she knows, there hasn't been an official announcement about the Queen. But everyone seems to know anyway. At the midday meal and the break that follows, the mess hall is near silent except for whispers. No one has seen the king. And he is at his most dangerous when he is out of sight.

In the afternoon, Ersa slowly makes her way to one of the most secluded parts of the gardens, and weeds as slowly as she can. There's nothing else she can do. All around the palace, she's sure people are doing the same.

She was never the type to avoid things before. She doesn't like it about herself, she knows she'd mock it if it were Erend or one of her friends or cousins. For her first month, she'd fought and defied every order given. She'd been beaten and nearly starved for her efforts, and it had felt worth it: she would not bend or break, she would prove herself to be steel, Oseram forged and strong. She had killed eight men in the Sun Ring, and would gladly kill as many more as it took. They weren't men, just Carja.

One morning, a woman named Yna had told her to haul water. Ersa had hit her, slammed the woman against the wall and hit her until two soldiers had pulled her off. Ersa was beaten, locked in a tiny, hot, cell, and not given food or water for two days. She hadn't had anything against Yna, or even the soldiers, but she had been proving a point. It had been Aya who had tended her wounds and helped her drink water when she was released, Aya who told her that Yna was a slave too, and one of the soldiers was called Ulan, popular, known for his compassion and willingness to help others.

Ersa had tried to pick her battles better after that lesson.

Things hadn't changed since the Sun Ring, since the moment she'd gotten the sword from the first of the Kestrels and turned to face the others, the sand burning beneath her bare feet and crowd roaring in her ears. She would survive. There, and in the Palace of the Sun.

Even if that meant hiding from the King's reaction to the loss of his heir.

There's one tree in the gardens that Ersa particularly likes. She didn't know the name for it: it had low branches like a willow, but covered in chains of yellow flowers. The color reminded her of home, of her clan's banner, the branches provided shade, and the mosaic walkway beside it was cracked, giving her plenty of opportunity to rest from the holy Carja sun while pretending to fix it. She had hidden a handful of mosaic tiles in the dirt by the tree; she laid them out as if preparing to slot them into place and rested in the shade.

Normally, when a noble or other important person wished to walk in the garden, soldiers would sweep the area first for threats — but mostly to warn away people like Ersa, who would harm the nobility with their sight. But today the entire Palace of the Sun is holding its breath, and she's sitting there, idly rolling a round blue tile back and forth along the ground, when the men come upon her.

For a half second — the second before either one sees her — Ersa is frozen, sitting with her knees bent in the ground. Then she's on her feet, her fingers still curled around the stone, her stance for stability. She could hit one with the tile, right between the eyes: the other would likely be slow to react. She has no weapons, just a bucket for weeds, but it's heavy. Not much of a thing to kill a man with, but she could. But will she? And who will she strike first?

The one on the left. He walks with obvious confidence, young and obviously strong. He's handsome, with the typical Carja dusty complexion and fair hair, wearing the silks that mean nobility. But he's well muscled under all that Carja silk. He'd be a threat if it came to a fight. He'd also be someone Ersa would bed, if they had met in a tavern somewhere else.

But it's his companion who sees Ersa first. He's the same height as the good-looking one, but much more slight, darker complexioned and definitely less capable of defense: he's the one she'll kill with that bucket, if she has to. Their eyes meet. His are brown, overlarge with surprise or expression. Dark eyelashes. Something —

He puts out his arm to stop the handsome one. "What the -?" the other says, then stops, then sees Ersa, then takes a protective step in front of the smaller one. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He's a noble, Ersa should drop to her knees and apologize, but she doesn't. She's startled, too, and all she can do is stand her ground. She tells herself to apologize, to follow Aya's advice, and the words don't come out. If one of them tries to touch her, she'll kill them both.

"Kadaman," the slight one says.

Prince Kadaman looks at his brother, and now Ersa's stomach drops into her knees. She's never seen the princes before, not closer than the bottom of the Sun Ring. There are rumors and talk about them, of course there are, they're the Sun King's heirs — Kadaman is supposed to be decent, if you treat him with respect. If you don't kill him with a piece of mosaic. Ersa drops down to her knees.

"I apologize," she says. She will survive. She will live. She will go home. She will apologize to the hated sons of the Mad Sun King. "There were no guards, I didn't know…"

"I apologize, Crown Prince Kadaman, blessed by the light of the sun," the prince corrects. Her throat tightens in disgust, but she prepares to echo his words.

"Come on, Kadaman," the other prince says. He sounds exasperated, but Ersa dare doesn't look up from the tiles under her knees. She'll call him whatever he likes, no matter what he does. She'll survive and she won't break, she'll escape and kill them all later, every last Carja under their precious sun, just as she did in the Sun Ring, the sand burning her feet.

"What?" The crown prince scoffs. "You're no fun. Anyway, she shouldn't be here."

Footsteps, and sandaled feet come into Ersa's view. She could sweep his legs, he's standing close enough — tackle him to the ground and smash his head into the tile. Both princes wear swords and she bets they're only decoration, but even a dull sword can kill if you know how, if your target is shocked by the sudden death of his scrawny Carja brother —

The younger prince's knees come into view as he kneels before her. He's balancing on the balls of his feet; it would be so easy to kill him. Ersa looks up, raising her head just slightly. She meets his eyes, brown so dark they're almost black. Those dark eyelashes. His hair, the same color, falling onto his forehead.

His brother standing behind him, a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Prince Avad smiles and Ersa thinks he means it. "I know you," he says. "You're that Oseram girl."


	2. one. (take me to a place)

_**one. (take me to a place)** _

  
_That Oseram girl._

Ersa runs her tongue hard over the top edge of her teeth, to keep her first words to herself. She looks back at her knees, her knuckles white around the blue piece of tile. "I don't know what you mean, sir," she says. She should have said _your highness_. Dammit.

"He means 'that Oseram girl who killed eight of our father's men in the Sun Ring,'" Prince Kadaman says.

 _Easily_ , she thinks. Once she'd gotten that spear, those four arrows and that bow from the dead man's hands — Prince Avad is still crouching before her. She could still kill him before his brother could react, it wouldn't be difficult at all. But she'd die, and would it be worth it? He wasn't even the heir.

No. Not worth it. Ersa will live to go home.

The servants and slaves talk about the princes; they talk about everyone in the Palace of the Sun, trading information as gossip and life saving aid. The child prince, Itamen, who the Queen never lets out of her sight. She wonders if Itamen is at his mother's side now, as she lies in bed, losing the fourth prince. Prince Kadaman, the heir, who listened to his steward and had at least once stopped a particular slave from being sacrificed, but had no sympathy for the lazy and disrespectful.

Prince Avad. No one talked much about him. No one pinned their hopes for a better king on him. He read a lot, Ersa knows. He was said to be a lover of music. She took that to mean he was a fool. Everyone watched the royal family, but no one discussed Prince Avad. That didn't seem to be a mark of memorable character.

There had been one woman, a slave like Ersa, who had had a particularly keen ear for gossip. When Ersa had first decided to stop fighting everyone and instead survive, she had been the one to tell her about the King, Queen and princes. Avoid the Sun King — no matter what. The Queen is afraid of everyone and afraid for her son, and will be cruel in her fear. Prince Kadaman can be counted on, if approached through the right servants.

 _What about the other prince?_ Ersa had asked.

 _Avad? He likes poems_ , she'd been told. _He likes to read. He's clever._

Vanasha had gone to Sunfall about a week later. She'd seemed to know about everyone, but not even she had left Ersa with better knowledge than that Prince Avad was apparently _smart_.

She still has to say something in reply. "Oh," she says, shrugging. "Yeah, I did that."

Prince Kadaman laughs. It startles her enough that she looks up at him, her fingers tightening over the tile. "I'll say you did. We were there with Father. I actually started watching after you killed the first one."

She isn't sure what to make of the subtext of that — that the prince hadn't been paying attention? Prince Avad stands and gestures at her, so Ersa climbs to her feet as well, keeping her head bowed low. _Be like Aydala. Be modest and devout. Hold on to your stone and don't throw it at anyone._

"I've never spoken to an Oseram before," Prince Avad says. He sounds almost excited by the idea — not mockingly amused like his brother, but as if this is a special treat. Ersa can't stop herself; she stares at him. It's like Erend four cups in, swearing he can join her on the hunt.

"I've never spoken to — you before," Ersa says, substituting _Carja trash_ or a mocking _Sun Prince_ at the last second. She can follow a script, repeat lines, but she's tense and it's hard to hold herself back. No, correction: she's scared. She can feel the sweat under her arms. She could kill one, maybe both if she gets the drop on Kadaman, and be tortured to death for her trouble. That isn't an option. She's not sure meek subservience is either.

"I actually read a book just a month ago, written by a scholar, about the Oseram," the prince continues. He touches his fingers together, points the tip of his hands at her. "I've actually been hoping I'd run into you. I wanted to talk to an Oseram about it. It's fascinating how your people live communally, trusting and respecting the decisions of your elders —"

"Avad," Kadaman interrupts, which is good, because Ersa is too taken aback to even begin to reply to whatever the hell the prince just said. Oseram? Trust in leadership? No one in their right mind trusted her father to lead anything except a round of drinks, and when Ersa had first stood and argued against him at thirteen, seven of her cousins and two aunts had argued back. And communal living?

"Sorry," the prince says, to Kadaman and not to Ersa.

"This is fascinating and all," Prince Kadaman says, looking and addressing his brother alone, "but now is not the time." Ersa is invisible, which she hates. There's an Oseram fact for the prince: how much effort it's taking her to keep her mouth shut and not brain anyone. Kadaman looks meaningfully behind him, in the direction the princes had come from.

Ersa has never seen the princes in these gardens before. The Queen visits sometimes, but never them. No one really strolls here, which is why she likes to spend her time pretending to garden. And today the Queen is abed and the King is likely to explode. It's possible the princes are avoiding him like everyone else is. But together? It's just as possible they thought they could speak here privately, and alone.

"Of course," Prince Avad says to his brother, looking politely downwards. Ersa just stands there, as still as she can make herself.

"You," Prince Kadaman says, looking at her with furrowed brow.

"Ersa," she says. Doesn't mean to, not really, but she can only bite her tongue so much, and he looks so arrogant that all she can think of is telling him off or striking him between the eyes with her stone. The Prince's eyebrows quirk, his gaze focuses. She knows because she's meeting his eyes. "My _name_ is Ersa Freebooter."

The Prince doesn't slap her. Maybe he is a reasonable man. She's heard of punishments by others for less. "Leave," Kadaman says. He doesn't give her further orders, tell her where to go: that's probably beneath the crown prince to consider. "Come on, Avad," he says in a less icy voice. "We don't have long."

"I know," the younger prince says. Kadaman begins to walk down the path; Avad follows. Ersa stands still. _Leave_ , she thinks bitterly. How far does that order extend? Can she use it to leave the palace? Get on one of those Oseram elevators? Out of Carja land? She almost doesn't notice when the prince turns back towards her.

She does notice when he reaches out and touches her sleeve, lightly, only a few fingers, a touch for attention and nothing more — a touch that sends her jumping back, her feet sliding into a balanced stance for attacking, her right hand and the tile tense to throw. She stops herself from attacking the prince. Barely.

The fool doesn't even notice. "Ersa," he says. "I'd like to speak with you more another time, about the Oseram." He smiles again, his lips remaining closed — his eyes warm. "Would that be alright with you?"

The skin under her left wrist is hot and sweaty, as it almost always is, covered as it is with a metal cuff marking her as a slave of the Sun King. _Would it be alright with her_? She bites her tongue until she thinks it might bleed, and ducks her head. "Of course," she lies.

"Good!" the prince says, pleased. "You still have mid-day rest, correct? I'll send for you —"

" _Avad_ ," Prince Kadaman says, ten yards away.

"— in a few day's time," Prince Fool says, not missing a beat. Then he says the strangest and most offensive thing yet: "Thank you."

Ersa stares openly as he turns to follow his brother.

 

 

 

The Queen Consort loses the baby. Neither her pregnancy or her loss had been announced, but for the next two days, the Palace is practically deserted. No nobles loiter for favors, no men try to curry favor with the Sun King, no priests stride through the hall. Ersa can't leave and can't ask Aya, but she'd be willing to bet money that all of Meridian is similarly still.

The explosion comes after three days: the Sun King announcing that darkness has infiltrated his palace and the corruption must be stopped, the Sun sated with blood. Ersa would roll her eyes — there is something a little predictable about it — but in truth, she's as terrified as everyone else is. People look at her strangely and avoid her, even those she's friendly with normally.

Only Aya doesn't seem to mind. "The blessing of the sun doesn't fade so quickly," she says calmly when Ersa corners her during mid-day rest on the second day. At noon, Meridian is too hot for anyone to work. The temples open for the devout to pray, but most people eat, nap, and rest. Even slaves have an hour or two. Today's meal was a spicy stew that had even had some meat in it, and Ersa and Aya were loitering together in the mess hall after eating.

Ersa runs her finger in her bowl and licks it. The food the servants are fed is actually pretty good, but there's never enough. "Tell that to the Sun King," she says in a low voice.

Aya looks at her lap. "I mean, your blessing."

"Yeah, I'm living a blessed life alright," she says.

"The Sun granted you the strength to survive the _Sun Ring,_ " Aya says in a reverential whisper.

"Twenty five years in the Claim gave me that," Ersa says. It's actually an argument they've had before, not that Ersa minds bickering.

Aya is much too pious to change her mind, however. "I wish you wouldn't joke like that," she says, even though Ersa was being serious. "Hardly anyone survives the ring. The fact that you're here…"

"A slave, instead of a free woman," Ersa interrupts.

Aya sighs. "I won't discuss this with you if you won't take it seriously. Anyway, because you've been blessed by the sun, people know about you. There are… rumors… that because of your blessing…"

"A sacrifice of me would be extra sun-tastic?" It's about what Ersa had suspected from her recent bout of unpopularity. It's not like she'd ever been the most beloved person in the slave barracks, not after her bad start, but besides Aya she had made a few near-friends. People respected her strength, and that was fine, since Ersa was proud of it too.

"But the Sun's blessing doesn't fade so easily. His Highness the Sun King Jiran knows you're still protected; the Sun Himself would have told him so."

If they put her in the ring again, she'll just kill her way out again. "Thanks," Ersa forces herself to say instead. She does appreciate Aya trying to comfort her, even if she thinks the whole line of reasoning is stupid. It's far more likely that the Sun King has completely forgotten she's down here.

But she doesn't _know_ that, and it unnerves her. Who is to say that if the King doesn't start thinking of people to kill, she won't be top of that list? If nothing else, Ersa is one of only a handful of Oseram in the palace, and the Carja would probably pick her people to kill before themselves.

"Do people really know about me?" Ersa asks, after a minute or two of silence and scraping out the last few drops of stew with her finger. She's thinking of Prince Avad. There _are_ other Oseram around — one guy, Kilm Forgeman (different clan, but his niece married a man whose clan Ersa's cousin also married into) — works in the palace armory — but he'd said he knew of _her_. She hadn't told Aya or anyone else about the meeting with the princes: it seems like the sort of thing that would automatically lead to trouble.

"Of course they do," Aya says.

"Good, or bad?" Ersa teases. She's joking, but Aya, of course, answers with complete sincerity.

"People are afraid of you, but I keep telling them you're not to be feared. Also, several of the soldiers think you're attractive."

It's not shocking that even this kind of rumor gets around: stick a couple hundred people in a palace and don't let them leave, and it happens. "I wouldn't screw a Carja if you paid me," Ersa shrugs. "Thanks for defending me."

"Mm," Aya says, somehow judgmentally. "You don't always make yourself easy to defend, you know."

Ersa can't help but laugh.

 

It's the next day that the King's announcement comes to fruit: not with a summons for Ersa to be sacrificed, but with more Red Raids and the death of four of the Queen's doctors.

Ersa is immediately relieved, and then miserable with a strange sort of guilt. She shouldn't be happy to not be killed if it means the lives of others. And she knows it was never a linear choice, her or those people. The Sun King would have murdered them regardless. But why is she still relieved? Why is she still happy to be alive? Sure, she'd sworn to herself in the Sun Ring and later in that cell that she would live — but what if Erend is captured in that raid? Or one of their cousins? Or a friend?

The tension in the palace doesn't fade right away. Maybe she's not the only one conflicted about her relief to be passed over. She hauls water, pulls weeds, and doesn't linger by the yellow tree. That day in the garden, she'd clutched the blue tile in her hand until she was back in her quarters. She hadn't known what to do with it afterwards: some of the free women had possessions of their own, but Ersa had nothing. She didn't know if she was allowed to have own a blue tile, so she'd put it under her pillow, the only place she could think to hide it. Lately, she's been touching it at night, running her fingers over the glaze like a worry stone as she thinks about the odds of Erend being captured and killed. Of the King coming for her. Of her clan teetering into collapse.

But there's nothing she can do except survive, so she keeps at it. Hauling water, gardening, taking her mid-day meal with Aya and a few others when the tensions fade. The Summer Solstice is two months away, and already everyone is talking about it: it's one of two times a year even the slaves are allowed to celebrate and relax, the kitchens usually provide a small feast, and there's not much else for anyone to look forward to.

"If you marry under the summer sun, you'll be blessed with wealth and children," one freewoman, Jaya, is saying during one meal two weeks after the Queen's miscarriage.

"But that doesn't mean he'll want to marry you!" a slave woman named Ghada says, to everyone but Jaya's laughter. Jaya had it bad for a soldier who guarded the Palace of the Sun; they'd slept together several times, and Jaya was convinced marriage was on the way. Ersa has no problem with shacking up with soldiers, and Jaya's man isn't bad looking at all, but —

"Don't you need to have a conversation before you marry?" she asks. "Now, I know we Oseram are different than you Carja women —"

"We've had many conversations!"

"' _Oohh, yess'_ isn't a conversation!" Ersa retorts. Aya and Ghada clutch one another laughing. Jaya looks affronted, but then smiles as well.

"Pillow talk, my love! He says the sweetest things!"

"Before, or after you've bedded him?" Aya asks.

"Oh, men say strange things if you put them anywhere near a bed," Ersa says dismissively. Today's meal had been greens and turnips and maize-bread, and she's still picking at her bread, trying to make it last.

"And you know a lot about that?" Ghada asks. "I thought you were a Oseram soldier woman, with no female feeling at all."

"A soldier woman in a barracks _full_ of strong men," Ersa says, to more laughter. She's always made it a point to not fuck anyone she fights beside, but here, underneath the Palace of the Sun, there's no reason to go into that. These women want scandal and gossip, and so does she.

"Maybe you Oseram have the right idea!" Ghada is a slave, but a high-ranking one. She has makeup and even some jewelry of her own; there are many rumors about what Carja noble gave it to her, and she delights in encouraging them. "I should become a soldier!"

The giggling trickles to a slow halt as a Carja soldier approaches them. Aya has the grace to look embarrassed; Ghada has the charm to look interested. But Carja soldiers are rare in this part of the palace, and in the mess hall especially. "Ersa Freebooter?" he asks, addressing her without any hesitation who she is.

No one has called her by name and surname since she's arrived here. She's just Ersa, Oseram, or _you there_.

"Yes?" she says, standing from the bench. The other women are no longer smiling. Ersa has been panicking all week, about the king deciding to kill her to please his holy sun, but now she feels calm, empty. The way she always feels before a battle she might lose but could win. There's just one soldier. He's in full armor, even down here. No halberd, sword at his hip. She has a wooden bowl, a wooden spoon. Half a piece of bread. But he'll be slow in that armor. It's heavy in the middle and the shoulders. Didn't she learn that in the Sun Ring?

"Come with me," he says. The galley is medium sized, full of tables and benches and people resting and chatting. Ersa follows him, out the door, up several flights of stairs. He walks ahead of her — she could pull him towards her on the stairs, push him down a flight, take his sword. But she wants to survive. She _will_ survive.

They go up past the wells, the work rooms, the soldier's barracks. Through a tunnel, unadorned, built to allow the coming and going of servants and guards without disturbing the important people. Up more stairs. They're in the Palace proper now, and Ersa has a rough idea of where: she's brought water to the various royal apartments enough.

The soldier directs her through a door without a further word or any violence. Ersa is in a wide hall, elaborate tiles on the walls and floor depicting fierce and powerful Machines and the Sun. Huge open windows with no covering create a breeze: pleasant in the day's heat, but probably uncomfortable at night.

There are three doors on this floor, elegant curved stairs leading up and down at the ends of the hall not dominated by windows. The higher the floor, the more important the people living on it: this floor is the fourth from the top. One of the rooms, the one on the far right, is Prince Avad's bedroom. Ersa has been in there to refill his wash basin.

The King's advisor, Blameless Marad, is waiting for her in front of one of the other doors.

When Ersa had been learning about all the people of note in the palace, Marad had often come up. No one had anything concrete to say about the man, what he was like, what he did or did not do. Everyone told her to never speak to him, never look at him.

She looks at him. He's reasonable fit, but the age of an uncle or father. She could throw him from one of those big open windows if she tried. Guards are posted at both staircases at each end of the hall, but she could do it before they killed her.

"Ersa Freebooter," the King's advisor says warmly.

She nods.

"Normally," Blameless Marad chuckles, "one would reply to a greeting."

What kind of a name is 'Blameless?' The Carja love their weird adjective titles, but she's not sure she likes whatever that one is implying. She senses that he's waiting for something. "All you said was my name," Ersa says.

He smiles. "True." He steps forward from the door, his hands clasped behind his back, and towards Ersa. "Prince Avad is looking forward to speaking with you about your people," he says.

"Okay," she says, not sure what she's supposed to say. Ersa had guessed that was the goal when the soldier had brought her to the palace.

"I think it's a good idea," Marad says. She nods, then realizes that he still hadn't asked a question. "It's important for princes to learn about such things, and who better to teach than one who knows?"

This time, Ersa keeps herself from reacting. The King's advisor has a way of saying things that sound like they need a reply, but are actually just statements.

He smiles. "Don't let me keep you."

Ersa keeps her back straight as he gestures a dismissal and walks towards the downward stairs. She's been a mercenary long enough to know when she's under review, but she has absolutely no idea what that was about beyond that. Her skin is crawling.

As Marad had left, he'd gestured towards the door he'd stood in front of; that's the door Ersa approaches now. She stops in front of it, weighing her options. Jump out a window. Go upstairs. Go downstairs. Go back into the servant's staircase and back to the mess hall and back to her friends.

Assassinate a prince.

Survive.

She won't get anywhere hauling water and gossiping for the rest of her life. She might get somewhere appeasing an idiot prince. Ghada got her jewels from someone.

Ersa raises her hand and raps on the door.


	3. i. (i'll place a crown)

  ** _i. (i'll place a crown)_**

 

Over a year later Ersa opens the same door, now guarded by two of her men. The fighting is largely over, but the city is a riot of smoke and bells, people celebrating and punishing the remaining members of the old regime at once. Ersa left Erend and some of her other men to stop the reveling from turning into violence. Her place is here.

She doesn't knock, unlike every other time she'd visited Avad here, but he must hear her enter: wearing Oseram armor, she clinks softly as she moves. She gestures for the guards to wait outside and closes the door behind her.

The room has been stripped bare, a useless, petty gesture against a fled prince. Avad is standing in the middle of it, where the desk once was, facing the large window that dominates the western wall.

He looks tired — she can see that from behind, in the slump of his shoulders. He's still wearing the traveling clothes from yesterday morning, the linen shirt and Carja trousers, the ones he'd put on as she'd watched from the cot. He'd already been tense then; she had been too, of course. But now it runs through him like a machine wire. Ersa hasn't heard him say a word since Blameless Marad named him king in the Temple of the Sun.

"You don't look like a king," she says. She means it as a joke, but then she realizes that of course the idiot will take it seriously, ponder the meaning and decide he's not worthy. "Although I see you lost your helmet _and_  your sword."

Ersa takes the few steps needed to cross the room, and reaches up, lays her hand on his shoulderblade. It always vaguely surprises her: he's so gentle-natured that she feels as though he should be smaller. "Avad," she says softly.

"I don't feel like a king," he says, which is good, because he's been in a daze since he'd left the palace the first time the night before, carrying the body of his father to the temple, hasn't spoken since, the expression on his face distant and closed.

Once, when she was still a captive in this palace, she had asked him about the Sun Ring. Did he _like_ watching people die? _Of course not_ , he'd told her. _But my brother and I, don't have a choice._  He'd looked thoughtful, distant, for a moment. _You learn to… go away. To go away in your mind, so you don't have to see or think._

She'd thought it was an excuse, that the princes should have done something. This was before Kadaman had and died for his trouble.

This was before she had learned just how good Avad was at going away, looking normal and seeing; feeling nothing.

"And your helmet?" She doesn't want to remind him of the sword again. She steps around him so they're face to face.

"Uh…" he reaches up, touches his hair. "That, I don't remember."

"Only a spoiled noble…"

"…Is so foolish he doesn't think of his own protection," he interrupts, finishing the sentence for her. That's good, too. He looks away and over her shoulder, out the window. "At noon, I'll have to go out and say something."

She nods. There was the spectacle at dawn in the temple, but then he'd retreated to his old apartments. She can't blame him exactly, but the city is only barely won, and the day is far from over. "You'll need to look like a real king when you do."

He glances down at himself, his dirtied clothes. "Father probably burned all my things when I left."

"I'll ask around," Ersa says. "You need a bath."

He smiles, the closed-mouthed way he does that's all in the eyes. She used to think he was so serious, before she knew better. "Will you fill the bath for me?"

"Ersa Waterpuller is dead and gone," she says, shoving him lightly, enough so that he stumbles, smiling as he does. "Haul it yourself." She'll have one of her men do it.

"You should bathe too," he says.

"Is that an insult, or an invitation?" Ersa _is_ sweaty, she can feel it under her armor after a long day of fighting Kestrels and guarding a prince, but she'll worry about that later. Right now, she has a king to get dressed and enthroned.

"Both," he teases.

She touches his jaw and pulls him towards her to kiss. He isn't sure where to put his hands with all her armor; she runs her thumb along the pulse of his neck. It's not their first kiss by any means, but something about it feels different — maybe it being here, in this empty room; maybe it being today, after all this. He still wants her. She still wants him. Sometimes she aches with it, not just lust but this other feeling, hot and twisting in her stomach. Like she wants to own him and destroy him at once, keep him to herself and safe, protect him and push him so everyone can know what she does.

She pulls away. "Huh."

"What?" He looked distracted, but the good kind, not the _locked in his own mind_ way.

"Never kissed a king before," she says, looking him up and down critically. "It was kind of weird. Not really sure I wanna do it again."

He looks aghast until she laughs at his face; then he relaxes and she's glad to see it. "Go fetch me some water," he orders breezily, some of the tension gone from his shoulders.

She swats at him on her way back towards the door.


	4. one. (cinder and smoke)

  _ **one. (cinder and smoke)**_

  
She raps on the door, loud enough that the guard at the end of the hall shifts his position in the corner of her eye. Then Ersa opens it instead of waiting for the prince to call or let her in, and the guard moves towards her. She feels a thrill of tension. There's another guard by the stairs leading up. She can kill this one, unarm him before he can react, take out the other —

"Ersa!" The prince says warmly from inside the room, and she steps forward, closing the door behind her.

The room is a study or library of some kind: three shelves against a wall are piled with books and scrolls. A small writing desk sits in the middle of the room, with chairs on each side; a padded bench rests against the third wall. Instead of windows there is an open doorway that leads to a balcony; the wall with the bench has a wooden door that — if Ersa's mental map is correct, which it usually is — leads to the bedroom. The whole room is lavishly decorated with tile, thick carpets, and painted panels of wood. The desk is covered by a carved wooden tray, laden with food: she can smell it immediately, and her stomach twists in hunger.

The prince is at the writing desk, half standing as if he'd been about to approach her; he sits down again, smiling pleasantly. She doesn't know why. She doesn't kneel, but she lowers her head. She's still not sure why the Carja royal family so terribly hates to be looked at.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything when I asked you here," the prince says. His voice is gracious and polite, and it's the sort of thing you say in this situation — except it's also clearly not, because Ersa is a slave of the Sun King, and there's no answer she can give. He didn't 'ask' her here. She had no choice. He didn't interrupt anything. By Carja law, she's his to do with what he'd like. Her only choice is to obey, or die killing him for trying.

The whole thing makes her angry. "Just my one meal of the day," she says, her voice flinty in her ears. She looks up at the prince, twisting her features into a smile.

He doesn't argue back, like she'd expect. Or even tell her off for presumption. "Of course," he says. He gestures at his desk. "I was just eating too. Help yourself."

Ersa forces herself to wait a second by the door, in case it's a trick or something — the prince just keeps looking at her, and she breaks. If she has to be here (and she does), she'll get something out of it.

There's a bowl of oiled charred peppers, honeyed maizebread, sweet fried spinach, vinegared salmon, roasted fruit… "Here," the prince says, handing her a knife, handle first, when she approaches the table. "Please, sit."

A knife! A real one, a smooth wooden hilt and a finely honed blade. The weight feels good in Ersa's hand, balanced well. None of the servants are allowed knifes or any weapon, just wooden spoons and their fingers to eat with. Who would risk arming a rebellion?

With this, she could kill him, one quick cut to his unprotected throat. He wouldn't have time to scream. She can hide the knife. She can get to the bridge before anyone stops her: a few more seconds and the guard will have fallen and she'll be running, hiding in the streets of Meridian. The city is high, well defended. But there's always a way out.

What sort of a fool would just give her a knife?

Ersa answers her own question at once: One who never thinks he'll need to protect himself from anyone.

She knows better.

But she's hungry. And Prince Avad is clearly an idiot of the highest order, but so far not cruel. She uses her knife and fingers to eat a little bit of everything on the tray. It's all delicious. Oily and spicy and sour and sweet. She's never eaten like this, even at home. No wonder the Carja are so arrogant.

"Do you not get to eat enough in the servant's quarters?" the prince asks, finally, once she's eaten all of the salmon and is nibbling at the spicy peppers. He'd taken a few bites himself, but had quickly given up and has been watching her devour his lunch since.

Ersa doesn't know if she should say yes or no to the question. She shrugs, sucking the oil off her fingers.

"I've never seen someone eat so much so quickly," the prince says. He smiles a little. "It's impressive."

She doesn't really want to chat with him about it. "Thank you for the food," Ersa says dutifully, averting her eyes to the table.

"Thank you for coming to meet me," the prince says. Her full stomach had been doing a lot to calm her temper, but his comment, the thoughtlessness, flares it back up again. The prince stands, lifting the tray up — Ersa can't help it, she grabs one last piece of honeyed bread before it's out of reach — and he moves to place it on the padded bench.

She's a little surprised he didn't order her to do it. She nibbles on the bread as she watches him set the tray down and go to a bookshelf, then come back with a volume bound in red leather. "Now that we've eaten," he says, sitting back down, "I wanted to show you the book I was telling you about. It was just published a month ago. The writer, a scholar by the name of Studious Rashad, wrote it after a visit to the Claim, your homeland." He lays the book down on the table. The cover is embossed prettily, with ornamental glyphs.

Prince Avad didn't ask a question, so Ersa doesn't say anything in reply. His hopeful expression falters. "Like I said, I've never had the chance to speak to an Oseram before." _Maybe if your father didn't keep killing us, you would have_ , Ersa thinks.

The prince, to his credit or as a mark of his stupidity, presses on. "Rashad's descriptions are very evocative. Your homeland sounds like a beautiful place. However… I've noticed he does exaggerate in parts. He wrote a book on the genealogy of the Radiant Line…" here the prince had the grace to look a little embarrassed… "and, well, it was very elegantly written, but not entirely…" he clears his throat. "Of course, I'm honored by his devotion to the Sun King and those who came before him. You can speak, you know."

Unlike the rest of his polite, carefully phrased monologue, his order sounds frustrated. "I don't have anything to say, sir," Ersa says.

"No, probably not about my ancestors. I apologize for getting off topic. But I really would like to talk with you about the Oseram."

"I don't have anything to say, _sir_ ," Ersa says again, her voice flinty. The food gave her strength, energy she hadn't realized she was missing, the spice waking her up beyond sullen dreams of stabbing him to death. _Don't stab him. Don't say anything to get yourself stabbed, either._

"But you're Oseram," the prince says. He sounds frustrated, the way Erend does when Ersa gives him an order he doesn't like, or her men when they want to sleep a bit longer instead of drilling. Or any number of her family or kinsmen.

"What is it that you want to know?" Ersa asks, the impatience finally escaping her. "How many of us your father the Sun King has killed? How many of us you have enslaved in your palace? How many mothers tell their children to behave or else the Carja will kill them? I'm here to obey you, _my prince_."

Prince Avad's dark eyes go wide with surprise and pain. It only makes her angrier. So she hurt his feelings? With just that? What a life he must lead! What an idiot he must be!

She glowers at him as he looks down, closes his eyes. "'Your Majesty,'" he says.

"What?" She shouldn't snap, shouldn't push the outburst, but for him to _dare_ correct her _manners_ after this —

"I am the second son of the Sun King Jiran," he says, "that makes me a prince, for which the correct address is 'your majesty' or 'Prince Avad.' But I am not _your_ prince. You're right. You don't owe me your loyalty."

She doesn't quite know what to say. "You're right," she says.

He looks up at her. Those big eyes. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about the situation. My brother tells me I'm an idiot." He smiles slightly, to show he can take a joke, that he's apologetic, and quickly grows serious again. "You have no reason to like me."

" _Liking_ you is the last thing on my mind," Ersa says. Not murdering him is. Surviving is. Doing what he wants to pay for the meal, to enable an eventual escape — that is. "Why would you even assume it was possible?"

The prince looks hurt again, and by the Carja's stupid sun, she wants to hit him for his naivety. The most frustrating thing is that it almost works: makes her think of Erend at his most pathetic, when her brother was young and still small and their father was still alive. It makes her want to protect the weak, the foolish, the innocent. But he's the damned _Sun Prince_ , and an idiotic one at that.

"I apologize," he says again. Ersa isn't sure if it makes it better or worse that she believes him, believes that he's a fool enough to mean it. It must be nice, to be so innocent. "I had just hoped…" she watches as a thin line forms between his eyebrows, "that we could talk, and possibly be friends." He touches the red cover of the book between them, his stupid token of friendship. "I apologize again."

Ersa's stomach churns, not from the food. Her chest feels tight. Absurdly, she almost wants to cry: not from sadness, but from the frustration she's feeling, the _anger_. How is she supposed to react to this? How can one person be so damn stupid? And worse: how can she reject it, this fool's hand of friendship? He could have her beaten or killed if she refuses: the prince seems genial enough, but with a father as mad as the Sun King, who knows how deep it runs?

More than that, and worse than that, is that he's her best shot at getting out of Meridian. Oh, Ersa is sure the idiot would never think to let her escape: he probably assumes slaves were born to be slaves, Oseram born to answer his questions about books. But idiots can be taken advantage of, used, tricked in all the ways she's spent her life so far trying to protect her clan from.

Playing nice is her best chance of surviving. It makes her sick with anger. The pathetic look on his face — she wants to wipe it off, hurt him, teach him just how cruel this world is.

What kind of a person sincerely believes he can befriend his father's slave?

"Don't you have other Carja friends you can talk to?" Ersa says, her voice tight. She really might cry. She hasn't since she was a child, since her mother died, but she has no other emotions that are safe to feel besides this sick choked up unhappiness. She's fought and kicked and grit her way through her captivity so far. This is beyond her.

"There are some members of the nobility…" the prince says slowly. He smiles ruefully. "But it's not always wise to get involved with them. And my brother isn't interested in things like this." Prince Avad gestures in the direction of his shelf of books.

Ersa gives it a beat. "Why not?" she forces herself to ask. She doesn't care. She doesn't care at all. But he doesn't notice the sullenness in her voice.

"Kadaman…? He likes swords and gambling and things like that." So does Ersa. At least she'd have something to talk about with the other prince. "And of course," the prince says carefully, "he is busy, as he is the Sun King's heir."

She'd meant the thing about it not being wise to talk to the nobility. She doesn't know what else to say. Be nice. Be friendly. Trick him. She doesn't know how. It isn't that Ersa has never faked interest in a man, can't be diplomatic or kind. She's adept at navigating her clan by necessity, and if you can talk the Oseram into something, you can convince anyone in the world. But this is different. She doesn't want to be nice to this prince.

"What's the book called?" she asks, the one thing he's shown interest in besides her. "Your majesty," she adds, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, a little cutting anyway. His eyebrows quirk up, just a little; he may have noticed.

"Travels in Oseram Lands," Prince Avad says. Then: "Do you know how to read?"

"Of course I do," Ersa says. She sort of means it. She can read the basics, the important stuff: who can't? But the glyphs on the cover are so curly, so fussy and Carja, she hadn't even been able to make out her own tribe's name.

"Of course. I wasn't sure," the prince says apologetically.

"Will you stop that?" she snaps. Dammit. She shouldn't have said that. She should control her emotions, control her words. Be like Aya, so sweet and pious. Be like Jaya and find some freeman to marry and take her away. And then she says more anyway, because the prince doesn't immediately slap or stop her. "Stop — apologizing to me all the time. It's pathetic."

He opens his mouth and then shuts it. "You're the _prince_. _Your majesty_. Stop pretending we're equals. It's —"

"I'm not pretending we're equals," he interrupts, and she can't find a good reply to that — what is he pretending, then? That he doesn't see such things? That he doesn't notice class because he's at the top of the Carja pyramid and everyone's below him already?

He looks up towards the ceiling, the sky. Praying to his stupid god for brains, no doubt. "Obviously, we're not equals," he says, which actually surprises her enough that she stops physically biting her tongue to hold back her words. He looks her in the eye — it's like a stutter in her brain when he does that, she doesn't know why. "You think I'm an idiot."

"Of course not, your highness," she says. She looks down at her lap, because she's lying, and she can't help but try to make the piety of it obvious.

To her surprise, he laughs. Under his breath, just quickly enough that she isn't even sure she heard it right — it could have been a sigh, but she frowns up at him, and he's smiling. When he catches her eye, his expression grows grave, but he doesn't look away. "My brother will be the Sun King," he says. "When that happens, I will become his advisor." He looks down at the book on the desk, traces his finger in an embossed pattern. "To best do that, I would like to learn more about the Oseram, about any of the tribes my father — any tribes the Sundom has relationships with."

It's an obvious correction, an obvious papering over of _people my father kills_ ; it must have been a slip of the tongue, but it's a shocking one coming from one of the Sun King's heirs. Unless he said it on purpose? But he's an idiot, he admits it himself.

"I know we're not equal. That you feel as though you have no power to object or refuse." Prince Avad hesitates: she sees it, and it's strange, how clearly and precisely his every facial expression is communicated. "You're not wrong," he admits. "But I promise you, with me — in this room — you can speak freely, and refuse whatever you'd like, and I will not abuse that power."

She catches the condition, the qualification limiting her freedom to this study. It's a meaningless promise. She is nothing to the Sundom. There is no power to abuse: she's below abuse.

"You want me to teach you about my people," she asks, leaning forward towards the desk, "so you and your brother can enslave them even better than your father does?"

"Kadaman will be a good king," the prince says, so firmly and without his carefully arranged facial expressions that Ersa believes that he means what he's saying.

She pushes it. Can't help but argue. "Like your father?"

Prince Avad meets her eyes. Doesn't reply. Hesitates so deliberately that she understands what he's really saying, really implying. It shocks her, enough that she doesn't know what to think about it: this is the second time he's implied he knows. The first wasn't a slip of the tongue. He lowers his gaze. "I only want peace," he says. "So does my brother. I know you have no reason to believe us."

He's not wrong. But there's more going on here than Ersa had first believed: she doesn't know what, but he's not quite the fool she had thought when she'd entered this room. He'd started with friendship and moved to strategy, moved to a suggestion of peace after that. That's three tries, three strategies. He wants her to do this.

Like Ghada and her gifted jewels.

"I'll help you," Ersa says, looking down not out of piety but to hide the sick feeling she gets from the words, the guilty turn of her gut. Lying to a man for something is one thing; this sort of subterfuge is beyond her. "But only if you help me."

"I'll do whatever I can," Prince Avad says, leaning back in his seat. That's not a commitment, not a promise: whatever he can do might be nothing at all. But she can't fake it, can't hide her loathing and disgust. And information goes two ways.

"I'll teach you whatever you want to know about the Oseram," she says, "and then you have to help me go home. I'll only help you for my freedom."


	5. one. (mountains beyond)

  _ **one. (mountains beyond)**_

 

Ersa meets Prince Avad's gaze. She's not breathing. She knows he'll refuse to help her escape or give her an excuse why he can't. She's not stupid. But he may offer her something else, something she can use to make her own escape, some scrap of power or tool to bargain with.

She meets his eyes, and doesn't look away. It's about power, dominance: she's sure slaves don't usually look him in the eye. She's sure even most Carja don't. His eyes are dark, large in his narrow face, fringed with dark lashes. He wears makeup like most Carja do, and it only serves to make them more striking: they're kind eyes. Warm. If they were anyone else's.

After a long moment, he breaks eye contact. She wins. "That's fair," he says. She wins again — but, what? It's a moment between hearing his words and them actually sinking in.

"You'll help me escape?" she demands, not believing it. Her heart suddenly pounding.

He nods. "I can't promise it will happen right away." the prince looks away, off to the side, his brows knit in thought. "The Equinox might work." He looks back at Ersa, mistakes her wide-eyed stare for something else. "It's not easy for _me_ to leave the palace, let alone Meridian."

Two months. Two months from now. Can she really believe him? He seems sincere, but this is wholly unexpected. Two months, and she'll be on her way home.

He smiles at her, his eyes more than his mouth. "Is that alright with you?"

"Have you ever done this before?" she asks, forcing herself to sit back down, let go of the desk. She feels wild-eyed and rushed with adrenaline. She can leave. She can go. Two months. She's thinking, also: if he can so easily offer this, it must not be the first time. And if it's not, then why are there slaves at all?

"No," he says. "My brother has. There was a woman a year ago — she had gotten pregnant by… well, Kadaman didn't think she was safe here, so he arranged for her to be moved to Daytower." Ersa has never been, but she knows it's the far edge of Carja land, right up against the Nora border. It's probably not much of a place for an expecting woman, but she can't imagine many who a woman might need to be protected from would go there either.

There's a lot more to unpack in Prince Avad's story. She has heard Kadaman's reputation, a story of him helping a slave — is this the same one? Or another? If the prince makes a habit of it…

"But that was just a matter of finding a place for her and arranging things so she'd be transferred without it looking like he was hiding her," Avad continues, as if Ersa had asked for more information. "In your case, I'll have to get you out of the city, and you'll need supplies. It'd be easier if you wanted instead to work in Brightmarket," he says thoughtfully. "Can we do that instead?"

"Absolutely not!" she snaps, standing up. "I don't want to be enslaved anywhere in your stupid kingdom —" she stops herself because he's smiling at her, and she realizes he was joking. "Don't joke about that," she says. She sits again.

"What happened to all those 'yes, your majesty's?'" the prince asks. She drops her head, but he adds: "I'm not complaining. I told you, you can talk to me."

But he's right. The fact is, no one would believe her if she said the prince had promised to help her escape; who would take her word over his? And there's certainly no guarantee that he means it. But to hear him promise it… it gives Ersa a little power over him. Just an inch. They're co-conspirators. He offered to break his father's law, and she heard him say it.

She just has to keep up her end of the deal. Two months. For two months, she has to keep her head down and obey.

"What do you want to know about the Oseram, sir?" she asks, trying not to sound tense, or worse, excited at the escape route.

"To start with…" Avad looks at his book. "Why do you keep calling me 'sir?'" It's not quite what she was expecting.

"I'm a Freebooter," she says. "Ersa Freebooter, remember?" She can't exactly blame the prince for not understanding: most Oseram she meet give her the same reaction, the confusion that she'd name herself that, that she's a warrior and not some Forgewoman or wife.

"The Oseram take occupation names," the prince nods. "And Freebooters are military, I take it?"

"Mercenaries," Ersa says. "Long contract only. We serve for years or for life, and we don't switch sides." So it wasn't that she was a woman. She's never seen a woman work in Meridian who wasn't a slave, so she waits for the prince to question her, but he doesn't.

"I could use a few of those," he says. She's pretty sure he's joking again.

"We don't fight for Carja," she tells him.

"I expect not." Smiles at her. As if maybe the hundredth time he does, she'll be charmed by it. He grows serious again. "How were you captured?" He must see the shadow she tries to hide from her face, and he quickly adds, "you don't have to tell me. I was just… curious."

"Scouts had seen a raiding party coming our way, so my men and I went to stop it." The only good luck of that day, of the last few months, had been Erend wasn't there: he had been muscle for a scouting party heading east. Ersa tried to give him those sorts of jobs when she could: Erend had the stamina for long journeys, and it kept him busy and far from taverns. He'd complain before he left, but none of his employers ever had a complaint about him when they returned. She hoped it'd teach him leadership, some independence. He must think she's dead: she hopes those lessons stuck.

Ersa and most of her men had been at the border. She and three others had been captured. One of them had died of his wounds on the way south. The others hadn't survived the Sun Ring. "They got me, but they didn't get the Claim. We made sure their losses were too heavy for that."

She meets the prince's eyes defiantly. He looks down. "I'm sorry," he says.

He's not. His own father had ordered it. Maybe this is what the princes do: be nice to servants, help one or two flee, tell themselves it makes up for the lives their father ends. It's disgusting.

The prince clears his throat. "I saw you in the Sun Ring that day. You're an exceptional warrior."

"Thank you, your highness," Ersa says, feeling a little terse and insincere again. Whenever she almost finds herself speaking normally to him, he apologizes or says something idiotic and she goes tight again.

"My brother pointed you out to me. I hadn't been paying attention." he still seems to be trying to have a conversation, too idiotic to realize how tense she is.

"Thank you," she says bitterly. She didn't mean to speak, but there she went again. At the very least, the prince seemed sincere about his promise that she could speak freely to him: he doesn't react beyond a slight widening of his eyes. "Thank you," she says again, louder and more angrily. "I was fighting for my life, after your father had killed all my men and brought me here. I'm glad you could bring yourself to pay attention to all that death."

"I can't —" the prince winces, closes his eyes. "Maybe it is my obligation to pay attention. But every month we journey to the Sun Ring. Father demands we watch, and every time it's the same." He's quiet for a moment. "I won't make excuses."

She tries to imagine it. The Sun Ring, her men dying in the grass of the Claim, watching it, every day, over and over, removed by twenty feet, fifty feet. Watching herself from above, the screaming and pleading and helpless cries. There had been a Nora woman in the ring with her and her two remaining men. For a moment in the beginning of things, she and the Nora had stood back to back, defending themselves as best they could. The woman had been killed by the sword Ersa later took for herself. She had never learned her name.

Watching it, watching this Nora woman, her men, the others die. Month after month.

"It's so rare for anyone to survive," the prince continues, sounding lost in thought as Ersa is. "It might sound strange, but when I saw you standing there, in the end… I was happy. I've wanted to meet you since then."

Her whole body feels tight and pinched, that _I want to cry_ feeling again. She wants to fight, to run, to burn all her fears and feelings into fire and action. She can't, and all that's left is this thin, tight desire to weep. She would sooner leap out the window to her death than cry in front of the Carja prince.

"Lucky for you I'm Oseram like you wanted," she says, her voice coming out too tight, almost gravelly. She digs her fingers into her thighs until she feels more controlled, until she can't smell the sand and blood any longer.

"I wanted to meet you no matter who you were," the prince says, with such earnestness she feels that — something, again. He looks away from her so quickly she doesn't know what to make of it. Clears his throat. "Of course, I do want to learn about your people. But I'd also like to get to know you. And I swear to you, by the Equinox, I'll find a way to send you home."

Her anger is giving way to a dazed numbness. An Oseram's word is law, but she knows that doesn't apply to the Carja. But to hear him swear to her — she doesn't trust him, but she almost believes that he believes it. "Thank you, my prince," she says numbly. She almost means it.

He sends her on her way with the red book, asking her to please read it and tell him what she thinks, where the mistakes lie in the study. She feels like a fool, walking out of his study with an expensive book clutched in her arms; she's certain the guards will arrest her on sight, but they don't.

The mid-day rest is long over, but Ersa returns to the servant's quarters anyway. She has to drop off the book. She takes it to her bed, third from the end on the right, indistinguishable from the others, and sits down on the thin mattress. The book is heavy, thick, and the room is too dim to read in, with only a single narrow slit for a window. She traces the embossed glyphs with her finger, as the prince had done.

She'll read it, during her rest periods, and tell the prince what she thought when they meet again in a week's time. She'll tell him whatever he wants, and in two months, she'll go home. Back to the Claim. Out of this city, out of Carja land, forever.

She'll survive.

Ersa puts the book under her pillow with the ceramic tile, and tucks the knife she'd stolen from Prince Avad's lunch tray under the mattress.


	6. ii. (fade and then return)

 

**_ii. (fade and then return)_ **

 

Ersa dispatches one of the Vanguard to find Erend, and leaves the other to guard the king. It's strange, to be in these halls again. It must be stranger for Avad.

Ersa goes down the main stairs, not the secreted servant's passage. The Palace of the Sun is almost deserted. She sees a few Vanguard exploring, and takes a moment to warn them against looting. This is Avad's palace now.

On the main level, she detours to look out over the bridge to Meridian. A murmur of voices reaches her, a few calling out: "Ersa! Ersa Vanguardsman!" It's not the right name, but she smiles.

The bridge is crowded with Carja, all looking towards her and the palace behind her. Some must have followed them from the temple; the rest have started to gather, waiting for the king. A line of Carja guards block them from progressing further, but the crowd seems content to wait. In the city behind them, there's a riot of movement and noise. Smoke is rising from the lands below them in places, and soldiers will be hauling bodies and rubble for a while yet, but Meridian's capture seems to be going smoothly. Ersa waves to the crowd before doubling back, heading down more stairs and into smaller and darker passages.

She could have sent one of her men, but she wants to see it herself. It's been over a year, but Ersa remembers all the twists and turns. Most of the servants have fled, too. They must have gone as soon as the battle had begun.

When she reaches the room she used to sleep in, Ersa stops briefly in the doorway. It's exactly the same, so much so that it makes her breath catch and something stop in her chest — some echo of the tension and anger she'd carried in her back then, so deep she hadn't felt the weight until it had finally left her. The double row of beds. Hers, third from the end, on the right. Now that she's here, she's not sure what she was looking for. If she expected to see Aydala again.

She might as well get her king his bathwater. It's only a few hours until noon.

On her way back upstairs, she almost runs into her brother. "Ersa!" Erend says, bursting with post-battle energy.

"You have a cut on your face that you didn't have at dawn," she says. It doesn't look deep; his cheek is a mess, but the blood is drying, wiped off onto his shirt sleeve.

"Oh, this? Some Carja didn't love us telling him what to do," Erend chuckles, automatically falling into step with Ersa.

"And you weren't wearing your helmet? That seems to be going around today."

"You're not wearing one either," Erend argues.

"I'm also not letting myself get stabbed by angry Carja."

"You know what, Ersa? Today is a great day, and you should be happy about it, not such a buzzkill," Erend says pompously.

"The sun is barely in the sky, idiot," she says. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us." She brings them up through the palace, through the back and to the water containers on the roof. Even this early in the morning, the water is warm to the touch, and she has to admit maybe her brother has a point. She doesn't feel like celebrating yet.

"So what did you want to see me about?" Erend asks.

"Your water hauling ability," she retorts. There are buckets on yokes stacked in a little overhang on the roof, along with spare tiles and tools.

"Really?" he whines.

"Go on."

"Yes, _captain_ ," he grumbles, grabbing a yoke. Ersa wanders out towards the roof's edge. This part of the palace is designed to be out of sight from the delicate eyes of the royal family, ringed with an odd architecture of walls and encroaching wings of the towers. From here, she can really only see the jungle, but she scans it anyway, looking for anything wrong. "Are they still fighting below the mesa?"

"We were for a while, but the rest of the Carja cleared out before dawn," Erend says, grunting as he splashes one bucket into the pool. "We raised the elevators when we came up. I sent a couple groups to chase them until nightfall. Forn's group already came back," Erend says with a bitter laugh. "They ran into a Bellowback. He's a moron."

"He's a bad choice to track anyone. You should have kept him in the market and sent Klint." But otherwise, she's pleased with the news and her brother's choices. He might make a good leader yet.

"He got hurt in the second wave."

"He did?" Ersa turns back. "Is he alright?"

"He's pretty bunged up." Erend stands with the water buckets around his shoulders. He's a little stooped by the weight, but bears it well. "We've lost a lot of men," he says more seriously. "At least twice as many Carja rebels."

"Even so, we lost fewer than I would have bet on." But her feelings are mixed. Of course they all knew there could be heavy casualties. Of course they knew men would be die. But it was her plan, Avad's plan, and she owns these deaths, no matter that they succeeded beyond her most wild expectations. "And don't forget, the Sun King is dead too."

"And there's a new one already," Erend muses. "That thing this morning was sure something."

"I guess it's what the Carja do when a king dies," Ersa says. She doesn't know. She hasn't asked Avad yet; she's not sure she's going to. There had been a moment in the throne room, just after Jiran had fallen, just before Avad had picked his father's body back up. She would have done it herself, and gladly, to stop him looking the way he had in that second. But Avad had wanted to be the one to put an end to it. He had as much of a right as any of Jiran's other victims.

"I want you to take men and head east," Ersa says. "As many as you think you need. The other Carja settlements need to know, and any supporters of the Mad King dealt with. The sooner the better."

"I wanna get word up to the Claim, too," Erend remarks. "Should I, uh… when you say deal with the old king's supporters, how do you want them dealt with?"

Avad would want to give them all chances to surrender, renounce their vows to Jiran and be given a chance to serve him. "If anyone approaches you to surrender, let them," she says. "Kill anyone who fights."

Ersa leads Erend to the Queen Consort's apartments instead of to the bare ones Avad had lived in. The apartments are smaller than the king's chambers a floor higher, arranged around a corner of the palace so that a study also serves as an antechamber for the bedroom, and a triangular balcony, only the tip overlooking the city below, runs alongside the rooms. The Queen had left in a hurry. The bed was unmade, a desk crowded with jewelry and perfumes.

A room intended for a lady in waiting had been turned into Prince Itamen's bedroom; it too showed signs of a hasty departure.

The concealed door connecting the Queen's bedroom to the King's lay open. Ersa shut it firmly. "There should be a basin in the storage room across the hall," she says to Erend. "Go get it and fill the bath in here."

"Isn't this the job for servants and not the royal Vanguard?" Erend grumbles.

"I wouldn't want you getting a big head," she says, thinking of all the times she did exactly this. While Erend sets about filling the bath, leaving to refill the buckets, Ersa calls one of the guards away from Avad. Together, they quickly clear the queen consort's rooms of her possessions and clothing, the prince's toys, placing it all in the storeroom to be dealt with later. Only then does she go fetch the king.

He's still in his empty study, still looking out at the city, and she feels a pinch of worry.

"Your bath is ready, my king," she says, dropping into an exaggerated kneel of submission. It gets Avad to turn around and look vaguely disgusted, which was the idea. Ersa picks herself back up, her armor clinking. "Have you been standing here by yourself all this time?"

"How long has it been?" he asks suspiciously.

"Long enough the only answer I want to hear is no. Come with me."

Avad seems to expect her to lead him to his old bedroom, but he follows her obediently up the two flights of stairs to the Queen Consort's rooms. He looks questioningly at her when they arrive. "I thought maybe you wouldn't want to live in the former king's apartments yet," she says.

His face sags with relief. "I hadn't even thought about — thank you." He picks up her hand and kisses her knuckles, which is a bad idea, a foolish one, but one she — so help her — finds adorable and allows.

"Come on, idiot," she says fondly. "We need to get you bathed and dressed. Don't forget to thank Erend Waterpuller," she says loudly as they go through the antechamber.

"Ah," Avad says. "I'd wondered what this was about."

"Me too," Erend mutters. He had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but quickly climbs to his feet and ducks his head. "I mean, uh, your majesty. It's nice to meet you, sir. King Avad."

"You've known him for a year, idiot," Ersa says.

"Please, just — don't change how you talk to me," Avad says with a tight smile. "Nothing has changed."

"Right, sir," Erend says, looking to Ersa for help she's not about to give. "Right. Things are exactly the same, even though you killed your dad and now you're the king. That sounded sarcastic. But it's not."

"I'm … glad to hear it," Avad says, looking strained.

"So… great job, your highness." Erend is flustered and nods at Ersa as he says it, probably because he's hoping she'll save him. Which she won't, because this is hilarious.

"That would be me, actually," Avad says with resignation.

"You know what? I'm just going to go now," Erend says, pointing towards the door. "Evil Carja to kill and all that. See you later, sis. Your highness. Bye."

Ersa sinks onto the bed before he even closes the door behind him, she's laughing so hard. "That was amazing! I'm assigning my brother to be your personal guard for the rest of the month."

"Please don't," Avad says, "I beg you." Which is of course half of why it's so funny.

"He'll get over it," she says, stifling a last couple of giggles and laying back on the Queen's bed. Avad's bed, now. She hasn't slept since the night before last, but if she rests now, she'll sleep overlong. "Take your bath. I still haven't looked for clothes for you." She has the sinking suspicion she'll have to search among Jiran's clothing, and that's not a happy thought. But Avad is the Sun King now.

"Yes, your highness," Avad says.

"Hah," she says dryly, watching him remove his shirt and metal vest. The cloth is stained with sweat and Jiran's blood, and she wants it burned. Avad places it carefully on a stool, and she's angry and worried about the reverence. Then he removes the rest of his clothes and climbs in the bath as she watches.

How long ago was the first time…? Almost a year now. They'd been by the river, the first time she'd kissed him… she's too tired to feel much lust, only the aching feeling she always has when she sees him like this, unclothed and unguarded, his skin smooth and unbroken — but today feels like an ending. The end of that story that started in Avad's study and by the river in the Claim.

"Ersa," he says. He'd been soaking in the water, looking out towards the balcony, now turns towards her with a soft splash. Catches her eye.

She leaves the bed and sits on the edge of the stone basin. "Need me to get Erend to wash your back for you?"

"Absolutely not." His grimace is worth the joke, but he quickly hides it, looking up at her with that serious expression — all in his eyes, dark and sincere. He reaches over and takes her hand again. "Marry me," he says.


	7. one. (heavy on your shoulders)

  
_**one. (heavy on your shoulders)** _

 

She doesn't check in with an overseer, doesn't go to work. Once Ersa has hidden the prince's knife, she paces in the barracks. She does pushups and then sit ups, switching between the two, until her body aches and burns and every muscle feels weak, until everything hurts, until she knows she's only harming herself by continuing.

Part of her hopes some guard or overseer will search for her, find her, try to punish her for shirking her tasks. Ersa doesn't want to be punished, but she's craving that fight, the excuse to fight, to burn away the fear and restless anger and everything that has just happened to her. To create some distance in her head, something else to think about.

No one comes. Who knows; maybe the prince ordered it.

When she aches too much to move, her stomach cramping from the richness of her lunch, she lies sore and sweaty on her bed, the book hard under her pillow. She doesn't quite sleep, but she gets close for a while. After dark and after the bell to end work is rung, the servants are given a second, smaller meal. She's hungry again now, but Ersa doesn't move, not until the first of the women start to trickle back into the barracks.

One of them shrieks softly, surprised; Ersa hears the patter of footsteps leaving. A moment later, the footsteps return, doubled. "By the Sun!" Aya says, "Ersa! Are you hurt?"

Ersa has been lying flat on her back, listlessly. Only now does she realize how it must look. "Yes," she says quickly. But she's overdone it: she's too sore to sit up with any grace. "Yes, I'm fine."

"When that guard took you away, we were sure —" Aya sits down on the edge of Ersa's bed, her thin hands reaching towards her, as if to grab or hold her. Over Aya's shoulder, Ersa can see the other women coming in, a few sneaking glances at her bed. She's not sure who the screamer who fetched Aya was, but feels a wave of gratitude all the same. She sits up, taking Aya's hands between hers.

"I'm sorry for worrying you," she says, meeting Aya's eyes. Aydala is only Erend's age, but looks older than Ersa, her face thin, her eyes tired and lined much too young from a hard, poor life. "But I'm not hurt. Just… tired."

"What happened?" Aya asks, those tired eyes swimming with concern. "Jaya tried to ask around, but no one knew anything, so we thought you at least hadn't been taken captive —"

"That's right, I wasn't," Ersa says soothingly. She releases Aya's hands, moves to sit cross-legged. She's buying a little time. For all that she doesn't want to lie to her friend, she doesn't think it's wise to tell the truth. _I had lunch with Prince Avad, he wants to be friends_? Even if that didn't sound dangerously unwise, the thought of it makes her recoil. She'd hate anyone who bragged about that, just on principle. "I… the soldier, it turns out, a friend of his — who works upstairs — well, he wanted to _see_ me," she lies, awkwardly. "I was propositioned."

"Oh," Aya says. The concern doesn't quite fall away. "Did you accept?" These things do happen. Some, like Jaya, fall into consensual relationships. Others are more transactional, women trading their best asset for whatever favors their lovers can give. It works both ways: a slave who marries a freeman is freed herself, as are their children.

"I don't know," Ersa says. Then she remembers that the prince wants to see her again. "I might." And then she remembers another thing to address: "He's friends with the head overseer, so…" Maybe that will explain why she had wiled away her afternoon and evening in the barracks.

Aya looks down. "I understand," she says quietly. "If you can get something back from it, it… feels a little easier."

"Aya," she says urgently, grabbing Aya by the forearms. "Have you ever been — asked like that?"

Aya nods, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder when she straightens her head. "Yes, when I was younger," she says. _You're young now_ , Ersa thinks, feeling a hot trickle of anger. "It was … for a time, things were difficult. You couldn't really say no if someone asked you." Aya looks down again, loses herself in thought for a moment. Ersa lays her hands on her friend's clutched fists. "He was a guard. But it's alright," Aya says earnestly, smiling back up at Ersa to comfort her. "I bought some herbs with my wages, and shortly after the prince put a stop to all of that."

It's not comforting at all, but the last part surprises Ersa enough that she's distracted. "The prince?" It all clicks together suddenly: Prince Kadaman and his good reputation, saving a slave, sending a pregnant woman to Daytower.

"I suppose word must have gotten up to the palace," Aya muses. "For a while, when it was bad, people were calling us the Sun's Whorehouse… things like that. That wouldn't do, in the Palace of the Sun and all, and it's morally wrong of course, so His Radiance Prince Avad had some of his men put a stop to the whole thing." Aya laughs quietly. "We even had a guard outside the door for a few weeks, until everyone got the idea. Now if anyone has a problem with a man, we tell Yna, and she takes care of it. It doesn't happen often anymore. That's why people were so upset when you … were angry at her," Aya says, diplomatically: Ersa had hit the woman several times, and not holding back, for no reason at all.

She feels terrible. Absolutely wracked with guilt: over Aya's matter-of-fact retelling, about her own ignorance, the fact that she'd assaulted Yna — she'd already felt guilty, but now it rolls over her, worse and worse. "Aya, I'm so sorry," Ersa says, her voice tight. She hugs the other woman without even thinking about it. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Aya is surprised but hugs her back, running her hand through Ersa's short hair. "You were so angry when you came here, I thought it would get you in trouble if you knew," she says. "It was five years ago," she adds soothingly. "It's over now. And if your soldier does give you trouble, now you know there's something you can do without getting hurt."

Like she needed more things to feel terrible about in this moment; needed to be reminded of her lies. "I will," she mumbles into Aya's shoulder, regretting every unkind thought she'd ever had about her friend.

 

 

The next day, she's back to work. Aya spreads the word of Ersa's new lover around for her, and she has to deal with Ghana and Jaya's teasing — something she normally doesn't mind, but now doesn't know how to respond to, since the lover doesn't exist and she hates the lie. She corners Yna during their rest period, apologizes for everything. The woman seems surprised, and suspicious. Ersa can't blame her.

After that, things go back to normal — the normal of life in the palace, work and rest and work and sleep. It's frustrating how quickly Ersa slides back into the routine: waking at dawn, reporting to her work, looking forward to the gossip and food at midday, doing it all over again. Except for the book under her pillow at night, still unread, it's like her meeting with the prince never happened.

She hasn't let herself stop to think it all over. It hadn't escaped her notice which prince had featured in Aya's story; the implication that the servants trusted Prince Avad, the things he'd said when they'd met, she doesn't know what to do with the information. Maybe helping servants really is how he and his brother reconcile their father's actions. Maybe it makes him feel less complicit. Does it make him so? Ersa knows she'd march right up to the Mad King and kill him if she could. But no matter how awful things had gotten, she'd never considered doing that to her father.

Part of her thinks it doesn't make a difference, what the prince thinks. The rest of her thinks it must be important: if she can understand him, she'll know if she can really trust him to help her escape by the summer solstice. Based on this, she thinks he might. But she also wants it so badly, wants to go home more than anything; that's an easy way to delude yourself into seeing what you want to see.

Either way, she knows she has to keep her end of the deal and read the book. But she doesn't so much as glance at it. She's too tired at night, and during her breaks, she'd much rather talk to Aya and the others.

Four days after her lunch with the prince, the morning starts off like any other. She wakes at dawn, washes her face, parts ways with the other women to head to the wells. The overseer, Tern, will tell her what she's doing: she'll check in again after her break to find out the afternoon and evening's tasks. Tern hauls water too, but less than Ersa and the others under his supervision: he also patrols during the day. He doesn't seem to like her, or anyone, very much, but he's also not an attentive overseer, so Ersa can't say she has any problems with him.

This morning, he stops her with a hand to her chest. It's a shove, not a grope; she briefly entertains the idea of tripping him down the balustrade and into the well anyway. "Not today," he grunts.

"Then what am I doing today?" Ersa asks. The only thing she can think is that the prince is summoning her, but she can't imagine why Tern would be the one to know that.

Tern shrugs. "All I know, you don't haul water anymore."

As far as he's concerned, the conversation is over; he turns to another slave without giving Ersa a suggestion of where to go next.

She stands there for a moment, jaw clenched. Many of the women work in the kitchens, so she reports there next. "We don't have a job for you," the head cook says. This can't be true: Ghada works in the kitchens and is always complaining there aren't enough people.

Ersa tries asking one of the guards, who ignores her, and then hunts down the overseer of the laundry, who merely gives Ersa a suspicious look and turns away. She's starting to get the feeling she's being ignored.

So she goes back to her room and burns off energy with sit ups and push ups until noon, frustrated and angry. It's not that she's desperate to clean privvies and water trees and fill baths, but servants who shirk their duties are beaten or worse, and she refuses to be punished for something that isn't her fault.

Rana is the Queen Consort's handmaiden; she's also the highest ranked female servant in the palace, and therefore the informal supervisor of all the women below her. Ersa finds her during the mid-day break, skipping her own lunch to search in the areas reserved for more important servants than laborers like herself.

"I seem to have lost my position as water hauler," Ersa says politely when she has Rana's attention. She averts her eyes, looks politely at her feet. Rana doesn't like slaves, let alone troublesome ones like Ersa has often been. "I just wanted to know what my assignment is now."

"Would you?" Rana says snottily. _You're just a servant_ , Ersa thinks. Rana is pretty, older than Ersa by a few years, with pale soft hands she's vain of; rare in a servant. _You wouldn't last half a minute in the Claim_.

"Yes," Ersa says sweetly, when a moment has passed and Rana hasn't said anything more.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Rana says.

Ersa's head shoots up. "What? If I get beaten because _you_ —"

"Easy," says the man sitting to Rana's left. The mess hall of the important servants is much nicer than the one Ersa uses, with tables and utensils instead of benches and bowls. The man is well dressed, both he and Rana are in dyed silks, but he wears a shackle on his left arm just like Ersa's. Just a slave. She could kill them both with their own damn cutlery.

"I don't know what your assignment _is_ ," Rana says, waving her arm dismissively.

"Then who do I ask?" she grits out.

"No one," the man says, sounding bored. "We've been talking about it all morning. Prince Avad says you are to be removed from all your duties."

She doesn't understand him for a minute. The prince said what? Why?

He must be trying to do her some sort of kindness. Some idiotic kindness. But Ersa sees the angry, sullen way she's being looked at by Rana and her tablemate, the way everyone has been looking at her all morning, and she feels a boiling wave of anger herself. "I see," she says, barely getting the words out of her mouth.

"We were all informed this morning," the man says. "Lucky you." He gives Ersa a long, sneering once-over, his eyes resting on her hips and breasts, and she gets the implication.

"You must be _very_ good at it," Rana says with a little laugh.

"The best," Ersa says with as much cheer as she can — which isn't much at all — and excuses herself. It feels like running away.

She wants to scream. Wants to scream and fight something, _hurt_ something. She'd only just started making friends, finding people to make her life here easier. And now, the prince, in one idiotic, well meaning move, has taken it all away. Servants _gossip_. No one trusts the royal family, even pious ones like Aya: by nature of being in charge of everyone, they're suspicious, and their special favorites disliked as a rule.

That stupid idiot! That moron! He probably thought he was doing her a favor! Ersa runs all the way from the second mess hall to the highest part of the palace the servant's stair connects to, sprinting up flight after flight of stairs until she's out of breath. Then she goes down as low as she can, and repeats the circuit, barreling past others, almost knocking several over. She stops halfway up the tower with a stitch in her side, panting and dizzy, feeling a little better with the energy burnt out of her. After that, Ersa can only laugh, hopelessly, sitting on the stairs with her head in her hands. At least now she has plenty of time to read that stupid book.

"Ersa?" It's Jaya, heading up the stairs with a basket of mending; she works as a stitcher of clothing. "What are you doing sitting here?"

"I don't know," Ersa admits, laughing bitterly. "What's a good Carja swear for when everything has gone completely wrong?"

Jaya sighs impatiently. "Come with me," she says. Ersa has nothing better to do, so she stands, her legs wobbly, and follows Jaya up the stairs. They end up in Prince Kadaman's dressing room, and Jaya begins to put away his newly-fixed clothing. Ersa just stands in the doorway, running her hand up a carved wooden vine in the frame.

"What are people saying about me?" she asks.

Jaya's mouth thins. As Ersa had guessed, the rumors were already spreading. "Prince Avad has ordered you free from your duties for the time being. He's not that lover you mentioned, is he?"

"No," Ersa says. She doesn't have to hesitate; she wouldn't in a million years. But still, something about Jaya's tone annoys her. She'd thought they were friends. "I don't even know him," she adds, which is true and sort of a lie.

"Well, people are saying you're fucking," Jaya says bluntly.

"I figured that part out," she says, picking her fingers at the ridge of the vine. "How do I get them to stop?"

"You don't," Jaya says. "Sorry." She doesn't sound like she means it.

"You don't think I'm fucking him, do you?" Ersa asks.

Jaya folds a beautifully embroidered jacket carefully, places it on a shelf, and sighs loudly. "I don't know. He must have some reason. This hasn't happened before, and you're…"

"Just a slave?" Ersa says flatly.

"Oseram," Jaya says, which is much worse. "Oh, _I_ like you," Jaya says impatiently, waving her hand, "but it's unheard of. There's no reason the heir of the Sun King would take an Oseram lover, not when there are Carja women to chose."

"So then obviously I'm not fucking him!" Ersa snaps, offended and disoriented, because now she wants to defend herself from both sides of the allegation.

"But he's favoring you!" Their voices have gotten loud, and Jaya drops hers to a whisper. "I believe you, but there must be more to this. He wouldn't just favor an Oseram for no reason."

Ersa knows the reason. She just doesn't know if it would make the situation better or worse. She doesn't want people thinking she's the prince's lover, but would her reputation really improve if she said the prince just wanted to be friends? If she was just helping him so she and she alone could escape?

There's a sour taste in the back of her throat. "Maybe it's because of the Sun Ring," she says. "This is my reward."

Jaya gives her a grudging once-over: not a leer, but an assessment. "That could be it," she agrees slowly, and goes back to putting away clothing. Ersa waits for her. It's not like she has anywhere else to be.

Prince Kadaman's rooms are a floor above Prince Avad's. She wonders what would happen if she marched down a flight and confronted him. If she'd be allowed, or stopped and beaten for trying.

She's imagining killing her way through guards again when Jaya speaks, hoisting her empty basket under an arm. "No matter what's going on, be careful," she says brusquely. "The prince might be decent, but he's still a prince."

Jaya is obviously annoyed, suspicious about the whole thing, but Ersa is comforted by her concern. "You don't have to worry," she says angrily. "I don't trust that fool at all."


	8. one. (four left feet)

_**one. (four left feet)** _

 

  
It's exactly as Ersa feared it would be.

As soon as the day after she's relieved of duty, it seems as though the rumor has fully spread and taken root: she's the prince's lover, and can't be trusted. Even others ostensibly in the favor of the court don't trust her; it's as if by choosing Prince Avad, she's betrayed everyone else.

Except that she didn't choose _anyone_. The idiot prince did this all on his own.

With more free time and only two months until her release, Ersa might have read the Oseram book he'd given her: instead, she spends her time stubbornly trying to find work to do, if only to salvage her pride. She's nearly at the point where she's about to find the prince and take her knife to him when Ghada finds her a place in the kitchens. She's clearly reluctant to speak for her: even Ersa's friends have bought into her new taboo status.

Working in the kitchens is a miserable experience, standing in place for hours on end stirring pots of grain or soup. All the food in the Sun Palace is made here, and the scent of it drives Ersa crazy with hunger, but the head cook is a much stricter overseer than Tern had been. There is no talking, no stopping. No stealing or wasting food. The room is always boiling hot, and Ersa is bored to death by her new tasks. But she refuses to let it show, refuses to complain even during breaks when those who still speak to her are griping about their own days. She's showing everyone where her loyalties lie.

On the third day after the prince had made her a favorite, he summons her. The guard appears during the mid-day break as before. Everyone in the mess hall stares, conversations forgotten, knowing where she is about to go, but Ersa is almost relieved. "I need to get the book the prince lent me," she tells him, and he waits while she fetches it from the barracks. She thinks about taking the knife, but leaves it. The soldier will probably be looking for things like that.

She follows him, book tucked under her arm, through the twisting halls and up the stairways. She can't tell if it's the same one as the week before, studies his back. As he had the first time, he escorts her through checkpoints and to the prince's apartments, then leaves her in the hall.

The King's advisor isn't waiting for Ersa outside of Prince Avad's study today. The guards still stand guard at either end of the hall.

She's thought about this a lot. She'll knock on the door — bang on it — let herself in, and give the prince a talking to. Yell at him. Tell him off, shame him, embarrass him, ruin him.

Survive.

Ersa's anger, barely submerged, twists itself into a new form as she raises her hand. She knocks politely on the door.

There's no sound. She immediately, impatiently, wants to knock again, but she tells herself to wait. A moment later, the door pulls open, and Prince Avad smiles down at her.

She hates him, rationally and irrationally. The stupid smile on his face, the way he and his family keep digging and pulling and destroying her life. Even the fact that a weakling like him is nearly a head taller irritates her. She might scream, or explode.

"Come in," he says cheerfully, stepping back.

She obeys. His book's leather cover feels sweaty against her arm. The prince heads straight towards his writing desk, which is piled with food. The smell hits her like a physical force: roasted meat, spice, soft onions, sweet fruit. There must be twice as much as last time: he planned for her. Her stomach twists and aches, and it makes Ersa only angrier. Before the prince can even sit down on the far end of the desk, she's dropped to her knees, holding the book on her lap, her head bent low enough that all she can see is the carpet.

"Ersa? What are you doing?" the prince asks from somewhere above her.

Good. Let him ask. "Whatever you wish of me, your highness," she says, trying very hard to sound sweet and not twisted with fury.

She doesn't look up to see, but she's sure she's caught him off guard: he doesn't respond for a long moment. The satisfaction curdles in her gut. "I'd like you to get up," the prince says at last, his voice tight.

"As you command," she says, struggling to not make it sarcastic, struggling to keep her eyes lowered. _Be Aya, be sweet_. She climbs to her knees and then feet, holding the book against her stomach, looking down. Then she stands where she is and waits.

"Sit, please," the prince says, after another hesitation on his part. He sounds tense; he's not so stupid as to miss what she's doing. Ersa's heart is pounding in her ears; she feels sick to her stomach from anger. She approaches the desk and takes a seat on the padded stool opposite his, still looking down.

She waits.

"Why are you doing this?" the prince asks at last, still terse.

"Doing what, my prince?" she asks, her fingers digging into the leather cover of the book. Now she's provoking him, daring him to fight or strike.

"Mocking me," he says. She'd thought he would accuse her of acting like a servant; had a whole argument prepared. For a second, Ersa is thrown, because she is mocking him. She didn't think he'd catch on so quickly.

"I would never do such a thing," she says through grit teeth.

"You're angry with me," the prince says. There's a soft taping noise; then another. He's tapping his knuckles on the desk. She's keeping her eyes averted down from it, away from the food, but just the thought sends a pang to her stomach. She can smell the pork; the garlic. She really wants that food.

He didn't ask a question, so she keeps her eyes steady on her lap. "I can't think of why," he admits after a moment. She feels that twist of anger again. "Tell me."

His tone remains polite, but it's an order, and now Ersa is even angrier. He's taken it away from her, her plan to show him: took it and ordered her to reveal it. She looks up for the first time. He's looking at her; doesn't look away when she meets his eyes.

"Everyone thinks I'm fucking you," Ersa says, as blunt and plain as she can make it; choosing the vulgarity in hopes that it'll shock him. She's hoping to offend him, shock him: instead, she clearly surprises the prince. He blinks, and his face colors.

"I'm sorry?" he says, probably meaning that he doesn't understand; he breaks eye contact and appears lost for words. Before he can find them, Ersa seizes on the opening.

"You should be sorry!" she snaps. "Everyone in this stupid palace thinks I'm your whore!" She pauses for a half second, to see if he'll cut in — ready to shout him down, throw his book at him, maybe — but he is silent, looking at her again, a line between his eyebrows. "Maybe you're stupid enough to think you were doing me a favor, relieving me of my duties," she spits, and he blinks, and she knows she's right, "but everyone looks at it and wonders how the hell I'm earning it."

Prince Avad doesn't try to defend himself right away. She watches, suspiciously, waiting for him to argue or call a guard; then it becomes clear he really is thinking it all over. She watches him swallow. His slightly downcast eyes. How dark they are. It's unnerving, waiting for him to speak, so she breaks the silence again. "I'm not your friend. I'm a _captive_. I'm a slave. And now even the others are looking down on me. Did you think of that? Did you think of anything? Or did you think I'd fall on my knees in thanks? That maybe I _would_ be your whore? Because I would sooner die —"

"I don't want that to happen," Prince Avad says, quickly, leaning across the desk at her.

"Which one?" she spits, interrupted but not slowed, "me fucking you, or me dying?"

He's thrown, and so obviously so that for the first time she feels something besides anger: his eyes are wide and he starts to say something, frowns, changing his mind. It's a mean amusement, a cold feeling, but it's funny. And then he smiles, just a little, also seeing the joke.

She almost likes him for it.

"Either one," he says. "And the one about you falling to your knees." He glances up — his mouth moves very slightly, another cautious flicker of a smile. "Ersa," he says, before she can decide if she's going to keep shouting, "I'm sorry." He waits there, but she leans away and clenches her jaw. He takes that as a signal to keep speaking. "You're absolutely right. I thought I was doing you a favor, and didn't think of the repercussions."

"What the hell made you think it was a favor?" Ersa asks. She feels sullen; not very mollified. But he's looking at her with those dark eyes, and it's hard to shout at someone who looks like that.

"I assumed you didn't like working for my father," the prince says, quirking his eyebrows.

"You mean, for you." It's mean, she wants it to sting a little.

"You're right," he says. It's annoying now: she wants a fight, a proper fight, arguments for hours, and all he's doing is agreeing. He sighs suddenly, lifting his hand to rub at his scalp. A gesture of frustration, one that leaves his dark hair mussed.

"I don't know what you assume, but I don't have much power," he says, meeting her eyes again. "I'm not the heir, and I'm not a favorite." She doesn't know where he's going with this, but she remembers how little Prince Avad is talked about in the palace. He doesn't say it sadly; his tone is frustrated, but matter-of-fact. "Kadaman has more influence than I do, but only by birth. I'd like to free or at least pay all of my father's servants, but neither of us have that power."

"Slaves," Ersa corrects obstinately.

"Slaves," he echoes.

"So it's just me?" she asks bitterly. "I'm the special favorite? _My Prince_?"

"Yes," he says. She looks up, narrows her eyes at him. He looks up at the ceiling. "No, you're not a… a 'special favorite.' But if I was to help one person, because I _can't_ help everyone I'd like, I'd like to help you." His eyes narrow slightly. "I don't see why that's so strange."

"I don't need your help," Ersa snaps. "Why me?"

"Because I like you," Prince Avad says, looking mildly puzzled in a way that makes her want to smack him. It's such a crazy thing to say. With all his apologizing and his oh-so-carefully mild tone, she'd almost forgotten how angry she is with him. She wonders abruptly how much of that is intentional on that part.

"I don't _want_ it," she says. But even if she does, she doesn't know if that's true. Oh, she'll survive, and she'll escape — sooner or later, with or without Avad's help. But it might take longer than the two months he's promised. It might take much longer. She wants to tell him to leave her alone, but she doesn't know if she can really bring herself to slam this door like that. If she can allow her stubbornness to lose her chance. And she hates that he has this power over her.

He _likes_ her? Why? Because she survived the Sun Ring? That's a stupid reason for the son of the Mad King — because she's Oseram and he has this damn book? She's exotic? New? Not some pious sweet Sun worshipper like Aya —

She's distracted out of her rising anger by an idea. "Help Aya," she says, leaning forward towards the desk.

"Aya?" He looks confused.

"Aydala. She's my friend." Ersa waits for half a second, then realizes there will be no bloom of recognition on the prince's face; he would have no reason to know her. She dislikes him for it. "She's — when she was eight, her parents indentured her here. She's a freewoman, but she's been cleaning your floors for twelve years, still sends most of her wages to her family, never complains. She is — she is so kind that she's an idiot," Ersa says fiercely, "and she's stuck cleaning floors."

"What do you want me to do?" Prince Avad says after a short silence, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Help _her_. Find her — find her a better job, or one with more money. So she's not always tired, so she can afford to leave our quarters and maybe, I don't know, get married or just stop looking like she's twice her age. Or work less, or…" Ersa's rambling; she's not really sure _what_ Aya wants out of her life. It's not a topic that comes up much under the palace. She stops herself, raises her chin defiantly. "I don't want your help. Give it to someone who needs it."

"Aydala," the prince says thoughtfully. Ersa waits. "Alright," he says. "I'll ask Cair where we can move her, as a reward for her loyal service to the King. That should stop rumors, I think?" He phrases it as a question and looks questionably at her. Ersa shrugs. There will always be rumors. But her heart is pounding. She looks down, not in mock piety but to hide her expression. "As for you," the prince says slowly.

"As for me, nothing," she interrupts, aware she's pulling her escape off the table, mentally bracing herself to abandon her dreams of going home so soon. It's fine. She hadn't really expected him to help her. She doesn't care.

Prince Avad runs his hand through his hair again. Sighs. Looks up at the ceiling. He seems suddenly reluctant. "Can you fight with a sword?"

She's thrown. "Yes," she says. She narrows her eyes. "You were at the Sun Ring."

He shakes his head. "I mean, fight with a sword. First position, second position…" He looks quizzically at her. "I didn't know if you just used it because you had to."

"Obviously I can use a sword," she says impatiently, not understanding this tangent. It isn't her favorite weapon, but she's decent with it; better than Erend at any rate. "You can't just fight off and kill half a dozen men if you don't know _first position_."

"I wasn't sure," Avad says. He frowns. "I'm not a very good swordsman." That twitch of a smile again.

 _Obviously_ , Ersa thinks. What a life he must lead. She can't imagine being able to laugh at the idea of being so weak.

"That's what we'll do," the prince says, as if Ersa has any idea what he's talking about. She frowns at him, and he waves his hand imperially. "Helis, my father's champion, has been saying for years now that I neglect my training. He's probably right," Prince Avad admits. "He's busy helping Father, and I'd prefer not to train with him anyway. But you're the famous Oseram warrior woman," he says, smiling slightly. "If you become my trainer, it'd explain why we spent time together, without… 'special favorites.' It can be your new task." He sits back, clearly pleased.

Ersa mimics his action, leaning back herself.

The Prince's swordmaster.

She could go back to hauling water. Or back to stirring pots. People would talk, of course: that the affair lasted so little time. They'd talk about this, too, but she has to admit, it's a pretty good plan. If she has a reputation, it is for fighting. And it would be good to feel a sword, even a wooden one, in her hands again. To get back into fighting shape. And there would be other weapons in the training yard, too…

"Can I refuse?" she asks bluntly.

"I told you, you can say anything you want here," Prince Avad says, waving his hand around the room. "If you refuse…" a flicker of something crosses his face. "I understand. I want to fix this."

She considers it. There's not much to consider; the pros and cons are clear. She wants to do this, not because she wants to spend time with the prince, but because if she's in the palace anyway, training is by far the best option she's been given. But she's reluctant to trust her desire. "Help Aya," she says.

"I will, I swear it to you."

"When you've helped Aya…" Ersa trails off, stops herself from finishing _we can talk_. She's not sure how much her power extends. Even though, on reflection, the prince let her say anything she wanted to him before. She hasn't even remembered to use his titles.

"When I've helped Aya, we'll start training," the prince finishes for her. He smiles. She scowls. "Is there anything else?"

"Not right this second," Ersa says, lifting her chin and with as much venom as she can muster, at his smile and the way he asked, at her own desire to wrench what she can out of this. And her suspicion that he knows, and doesn't mind at all.

"In that case," Prince Avad says. He pauses for a delicate second, and his expression changes. "I really am hungry," he says balefully, his dark eyes flickering down at the cooling lunch between them.

"You've never been hungry in your life," Ersa says imperiously, but can't stop herself: she looks down at the food too, the roasted boar, the soft turnips, and licks her top lip unthinkingly.

He actually laughs, soft, under his breath; pours a glass of wine and hands it across the table to her.


	9. iii. (shadows of tall buildings)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case it's not totally clear, every third chapter (the ones marked with roman numerals) takes place a year+ after the rest of the story. so far each is a direct continuation, but there will be more gaps as the story goes on. MULTIPLE TIMEFRAMES GO GO
> 
> please let me know what you think!

  
_Marry me_.

Ersa's hand is held in Avad's for a moment. Even after all this time, a year of traveling, preparing, fighting, his hand is soft and free of calluses, so unlike her own. He looks up at her with those dark eyes of his, and she has to smile.

"You've asked me that before, my love," she says, the endearment to take the sting out of her answer. Ersa pulls her hand free of his.

"And it isn't possible," Avad says, quoting a past discussion.

"Incredibly not possible," she says, standing from the edge of the tub and turning away. She brushes her hair back from her face. It's getting a bit long, she thinks absently. She'll cut it soon. For now, she needs to get back to work.

"I know that," the prince says. The _king_ says. "Even so, I've been thinking about it all morning."

"It would have been better if you'd been thinking about your throne," Ersa says. She doesn't love the petulant edge in his voice.

"My father is dead," Avad says, with a firmness in his voice that surprises her. Ersa turns back. It's not easy to look regal in a bathtub, but he's leaning against the back, elbow on the side, hand at his chin. It's his gaze that does it: unflinching and direct. "My father is dead, and I killed him, and all I've been thinking about is you and the past. I don't care anymore what is and isn't possible."

"Spoken like a king," Ersa says, smiling teasingly.

"Ersa," he says, frowning.

There's a power that comes with certainty, the belief that you're correct and nothing could possibly prove you otherwise. Ersa's father hadn't had it, and it had cost him the respect of his clan, started him drinking and cost him his life. Ersa tries to imitate it as best she can.

But Avad was born with it. She'd thought it was naive idiocy for a long time, the way he'd been oblivious to her anger, let her steal a knife. And sometimes it is naivety. But the king isn't a man who has ever doubted what he says isn't important; what he wants doesn't matter.

"Your highness," she says. She doesn't want to talk about this right now. She holds her breath for a moment. "I made a vow to get you on your throne," she reminds him.

"And you have," he says.

"Not yet I haven't," she says. "Not unless you want to take it naked." Her mouth twitches, but she's annoyed and it's obvious in her tone. He looks away, his certainty gone. Now he's just Avad, tired in a bath. She doesn't like to keep dismissing him, but — now isn't the time to get carried away with dreaming.

 _Marry me_. She remembers the first time he'd asked. Her mind also drifts to the past. How she'd hated him, how she'd looked down on him. How slowly she'd realized her feelings were changing, and what they were changing to.

"Wash up," she says abruptly, sitting on the edge of the queen's bed.

"You're more eager to get me on my throne than I am," Avad complains, and she knows her suspicion is correct: he's taken all this as a rejection. Idiot. As if she's left his side in days. As if the last time either of them had slept, it hadn't been in the same tent and cot.

She'd snuck in. She was getting good at that. They were both brimming with nervous energy for the day ahead; they'd been quiet, but hardly the only ones in the camp finding a release before the battle. Instead of leaving after, the safer option, Ersa had stayed. She'd slept easily, but suspected Avad hadn't: when she'd woken in the early dawn, he had been awake already, his fingers tracing lightly on her shoulderblade.

And she's rejecting him, _surely_.

"I might be," she says, trying not to be irritated. "Peace between our tribes comes first. You know that."

He cups his hands in the water and rinses his face. "I do know that," he says. "And I vow to you, it will be done. My first act as king." He's not looking at her, so she knows he's annoyed, too.

He's also quoting another old conversation. His third act as king had been marrying her.

Ersa rests her forearms on her knees. "Look at me," she says.

He does, warily for a moment, then with question clear in his eyes. Still, Ersa stretches on the silence. His hair is wet now: lying against his forehead, he looks younger. She's annoyed and her instinct is to argue, to fight just for the sake of it, but Ersa also wants to win, and knows how she can.

"I thought I hated you for a long time," she says.

Something shifts in his eyes. "I'm aware of that," he says unhappily.

"But I always liked your eyes. Loved your eyes," Ersa corrects herself. He starts to smile, hides it, and then does. "Even when I was thinking 'I want to kill him with a bucket,' a part of me was thinking 'look at his eyelashes,'" she admits with a self depreciating sigh. "That was how I knew," she adds, looking up at the ornately carved ceiling. "I'm not going anywhere, idiot," she adds, looking back directly at him. "Now wash up so I can get you crowned."

His shoulders have shifted, he's smiling, even when he turns back to the water, as though he can't stop himself. _Idiot_. Ersa bends at the tub and kisses him, slow and soft, biting his lip when she pulls away.

"With a bucket?" he asks when she does. His hand is wet against her cheek.

"Mm," she says. "I was going to kill your brother with his own sword, but I thought a weed bucket would be enough for you."

His eyes narrow slightly as he remembers, and probably re-contextualizes, their first meeting. How long ago that was. How differently she'd seen him then. "I love you," he says, taking and kissing her hand again.

"I know," Ersa says sweetly, and leaves to get him dressed.

 

 

Ersa doesn't linger in the Mad King's apartments long. They're almost bare, with no decoration beyond the elaborately carved walls and ceilings, the bed in the center of a chamber surrounded on three sides by open doors and balconies. The views are spectacular, but the effect is like being in a bird's cage.

The wardrobe is almost as large as the bed chamber, filled with Carja clothing and jewels and kingly ornamentation. Ersa doesn't know where to begin, so she retreats. The crowd of Carja outside the palace has swelled, and the bridge is almost impassable from the eager waiting subjects. More of the Vanguard have started to cluster on the palace's side of the bridge. She spots Erend among them. "Where's Balahn?"

"You don't need him, Captain," Erend complains. "You've got us!" Some of the other men grumble in affirmation. He and some of his friends are sitting around resting, with pints they've procured from somewhere or another. Ersa takes her brother's.

"I need a Carja," Ersa corrects, taking a drink of Erend's ale. She winces. It's sour and sharp: Carja don't make good alcohols. "The day isn't over," she reminds them. "I won't have drunk men."

"You won't have any," Erend says, snatching the metal cup back.

"Where's Captain Balahn?" she asks.

"Saw him inside," one of the men offer.

Ersa finds the captain in the throne room. He had been one of the first Carja to defect and join Avad's cause, certainly the first of his rank, and had been given the task of climbing to the Temple of the Sun earlier this morning, but he seems unscathed by the day's battles.

"Captain," she says as she approaches. He's in the center of the audience hall, facing the empty throne.

"Ersa," he replies. His tone is friendly enough, but she notes the lack of title with some annoyance. They're the same rank. Hell, Ersa's pretty sure she counts as higher. "We've done well today," he adds.

"We have." Ersa looks at the throne. The room is bathed in morning light from high-placed windows, everything is gilt metal and polished machine parts, but it seems somehow dark. Someone has already extinguished the lamps and cleaned the blood.

"Did you ever see King Jiran before today?" Balahn asks.

"Only from afar," she says.

"I'd met him once, when I was young. Before his madness. And I'd been in audience here several times."

"What did you think?" she asks, glancing to her right at him. His attention is still on the throne.

"It will be good to see Avad here in his place."

"I agree," Ersa says. "I was looking for you. Avad wants to appear at noon." the captain nods; she supposes that's not a surprise to the Carja. "But before that, he has to look the part. It seems like all the slaves have fled."

"I see," the captain says. Then he smiles, seeing the humor in Ersa's unstated request. Aside from being one of the first Carja defectors, Balahn is also well-born. Not quite a noble, from Ersa's understanding, but from a well-off family. "Why not? If my first act for the king is to be his steward, it must be the sun keeping me humble."

They return to Jiran's rooms together, and Balahn helps Ersa choose the right clothing: red and orange silks, white instead of Jiran's gold. The Mad King had had several crowns, each more elaborate and imposing than the last, but for Avad Balahn choses a plainer one. Ersa appreciates the choice: the simpler ornamentation suits Avad better, and will differentiate him from his father.

When they return to the Queen's apartments, now Avad's, they find him sleeping on his stomach on the bed. Ersa wants to let him rest, but the morning is growing late. "Your highness," she says loudly.

He stirs. "Ersa?" he murmurs, turning his head; then catches sight of the captain and rolls over. "And Captain Balahn." He sits up. He's pulled his trousers back on, but nothing else. With his hair mussed and no ornamentation, he looks like an ordinary man. Possibly for the last time. "I apologize for falling asleep."

"No need to apologize, my king," Balahn says smoothly, bowing. "And as high noon approaches, I am your dresser, not your captain."

"Of course," Avad says, blinking sleep out of his eyes. "Another debt I will repay you," he says seriously. "And this the steepest one yet."

He's joking, but Ersa isn't sure Balahn can tell. "Not at all, my lord," he says. "We've found you clothes that will suit you for now — until you can have better ones tailored."

Ersa's help isn't really needed, but she watches as the men get the king dressed. Avad doesn't need much help or coaching: he looks through the items they've chosen and dresses himself, the captain helping with hidden clasps and out-of-reach knots. The clothes are heavy and not designed to be easily worn: it's a sign of Carja status to need help dressing in the mornings.

Ersa watches hungrily.

Over the past year, she's gotten used to how the prince looked. His linen undershirts and red silk overshirt; foregone when they were traveling and eventually replaced with yellow Oseram hemp. His hair, often mussed and usually in need of a trim; the lean lines of his body, his feet bare against the stone floor.

When he's dressed, she no longer knows him. The heavy Carja silks, the sashes and knots, the ornamental cloak over his shoulders, heavy with embroidery and machine parts. His hair is covered by cloth and crown, and Ersa watches as Balahn assists him with Carja eye makeup.

All at once, he doesn't look like Avad, the man who asked her to marry him not an hour before. He also doesn't look like the idiot prince she'd met a year ago, who had dressed well but without ornamentation or head covering.

He looks like a king.

It's just clothes and trappings, Ersa knows, but she can't stop the way her throat and stomach clench at the _Carjaness_ of it all, the perfumes and lines and soft clinking metal, the swish of heavy silks. This isn't her lover. This isn't Avad. This isn't the man who had been napping on a bed fifteen minutes before, who had smiled when he'd woken to see her.

It feels like panic and fear and loss. She'd vowed to get him a throne, vowed to bring their tribes peace. She'd always pictured Avad in his overshirt and skimpy armor on that throne, not a Sun King.

Something must reflect in her eyes: when he glances over, he stops, concern openly reflecting in his own.

His stupid wounded look, at least, is the same. Ersa forces a smile. "You look great," she lies.

"I'd forgotten how hard it is to move in all this," he says mildly, waving an arm vaguely. Balahn retrieves his sword from where Avad had left it on the floor, and with a thanks, Avad straps it on. Alone among his former clothes, the sword had been made for royalty, with an elaborately ornamented sheath.

"You look like a king," the captain says, surveying Avad proudly.

"Thank you," he says.

"You do," says Ersa. "So Carja I have to stop myself from stabbing you on sight."

Captain Balahn frowns, alarmed, but Avad laughs, and Ersa feels a little better. "No," he says, still laughing. He clears his throat, chuckles. "No, I shouldn't laugh," he says. "That's not becoming of a king." He turns to Balahn. "I'll need a guard. Half Oseram, all in parade gear. I don't care who, as long as they look the part. And two priests to escort us to the temple at high noon."

"Of course, my king," Balahn says, bowing and excusing himself.

Then it's just Ersa and the Sun-King, who is looking thoughtful again. "We'll probably need some kind of feast," he says vaguely, thinking aloud.

"I'll find you new servants," Ersa says. She can at least make sure they're paid, and paid well at that.

"Later," he says. "There's time for that all later. Right now, I want you by my side."

She meets his eyes, those dark eyes she fell in love with first. Her smile had faded when he'd stopped himself from laughing, but his eyes are the same. They're still the same.

"Always," she promises.

 


	10. one. (rivers and roads)

_**one. (rivers and roads)** _

 

 

When the prince hands her the glass of wine, Ersa is immediately suspicious of poison. She refuses to take it, or even look at his extended hand: Prince Avad sighs, just loudly enough for her to hear, and takes a sip himself. When he offers the cup again, Ersa takes it from him and drinks eagerly.

The first taste is a shock. This isn't the watery, sour, diluted wine the servants get. This is bright and fresh and heady, cool and undiluted. "There's plenty more," the prince says in reaction to something in Ersa's expression. She wants to drain her cup and the prince's cup besides, but puts it on the desk after one more sweet sip.

"I don't want it," she says stubbornly. The prince raises his eyebrows as he drinks.

She helps herself to the prince's lunch instead: Charred boar and garlic with a sweet fruit sauce, turnips and pumpkin with anise, spicy walnuts and little river fish in oil. Ersa forgoes the knife and plate to eat with her fingers, the spices clearing her nose and causing sweat to pool at the back of her neck. She eats her share and most of the prince's, and drains her wine after all. The prince refills her cup once, and then a second time, nibbling only from a dish of nuts and sliced oranges that Ersa had passed over. She doesn't speak, and he doesn't try to make conversation. The few times she looks up from her lunch at him, he's watching her with a bemused expression.

When the prince tries to refill her cup for a third time, Ersa pulls it out of his reach. "You won't get me drunk," she says. She's eaten too much to lace her words with much venom; her stomach is painfully full.

"I wasn't trying to," the prince says, setting the jar back on the floor after refilling his own cup.

Ersa leans back and eyes him warily. Only now that she's not eating is she aware that her head is spinning: she's not drunk, but this is more than she's drank in a long time. And she's never been much of a drinker: she leaves that to her father and Erend.

"Do you not get enough to eat in the servant's barracks?" the prince asks her.

She wonders very briefly what would happen if she said no; if the prince would order higher rations. Some charred onions for all. Maybe there's an upside to being his special favorite. "We get a meal at midday, and something smaller at night," she says.

"Is it… good?" The prince clearly thinks she's starving when she's not with him. She is usually hungry, but she doesn't like his pitying concern.

"It's not this," she says, helping herself to another soft clove of garlic and licking her fingers after.

"Right," he says.

Ersa picks at the leftovers a bit more, waiting for the prince to say something or dismiss her. Her anger has faded with his promises and the food, but she has no idea what he still wants from her. Unless he wants a swords lesson now. The food and wine has left her feeling heavy and slow, but if he orders it, she's sure she still has the energy to beat him senseless.

After a few minutes, the prince clears his throat and leans towards her across the table. "Did you read the book?"

"What?" She remembers the book, the book about the Oseram, which she'd unceremoniously dropped onto the floor when lunch had began. The book he'd lent her. The whole reason he'd wanted to be friends in the first place. She's caught too off guard to lie well. "No," she says. Guilt hits her like a wave, dropping to her too-full stomach, which twists unpleasantly. The book. The damn book.

She'd had no intention of reading it at all, but now she realizes what an idiot she's been. How is she supposed to use his favor, manipulate him, if she's so bad at this? Deception, pretending to do what he wants to get what she wants — they're not Oseram habits, not Ersa's habits, but it was so _simple_. But she'd been angry. And she'd just stuffed her face! She'd just made him promise to help Aya! _Aya_. She winces. _If I wasn't so stubborn, you'd have been saved, my dear._

"No," she says again. "I've been… busy." It's a bald lie, and a bad one. He relieved her of her duties. "I've been helping out in the kitchens," she says sullenly, still cursing her own stupidity. The prince has pitied her, promised her favors and help, but only in exchange for her doing what he wants.

"Why were you in the kitchens?" The prince sounds mystified instead of angry.

"To prove who I was loyal to," Ersa mutters. She immediately squeezes her eyes shut. She shouldn't have said that. How are the Carja so good at keeping their mouths shut, taking orders and remarks without question? She's always thought it was a sign of spinelessness, emptiness in the head, but it's clearly a skill; an ability she lacks.

She bites her tongue. Her thinking is slow: the wine and food and heat of the day has gotten to her. She holds her tongue between her molars and tells herself she won't speak again. Or she will, but properly. Throw herself at his feet. Apologize. Tell him her life story, if she must, if it satisfies his curiosity. Vow herself his loyal servant. Fuck him if she has to.

Then the prince starts laughing. Ersa looks up sharply, accidentally biting down on her tongue hard enough that she winces and releases her hold. "You really are incredible," he says. He's smiling at her. His eyes are warm.

Ersa is aware her mouth is open, her eyes probably bulging. "Yes, sir," she says. She doesn't know how else to respond.

"But this is a problem," he says seriously. His eyes are bright, still warm, but Ersa is still wary. Her eyes dart to the knife on the table. No one stopped her last time she left; how far can she make it? If she moves fast, can she get out of the city? Abandon all these ideas of politics and manipulation and just fight her way out? Once she's outside of Meridian, she knows she can make it back to the Claim.

"The whole reason I asked you here today was to talk about the book," Prince Avad continues. He scratches at his jaw, then turns and looks out at the balcony behind him, up at the sun, judging the hour.

"I'm sorry," she says. She realizes again what a mistake she's made: congratulating herself on what she's taken from him, when he is and has always been the one with the power. He offered her rewards for cooperation. She thought she was taking from an idiot eager to please. He'll take her freedom and Aya's aid away now, leaving her with two meals and a far worse job in the kitchens. Even the promise of swordsmanship, a much better job, will be rescinded. She's cursing herself and her stubbornness again when the prince stands up. He clears the table of its tray of food and drink, moving it all to the padded bench against the wall, before returning to the writing desk.

"Will you be missed in the kitchens?" he asks. Ersa tries to decide if it's a threat.

"No," she says. Even without the knife on the tray, or the knife under her mattress, she's still confident she can kill him if she needs to.

"Will you miss being in the kitchens?" the prince asks. His tone of voice doesn't change, but she suspects him of joking again.

She shakes her head. She can upend the desk and knock him over with it: it's solid wood, well made, and heavy. He has a head on her but once on the floor she can kick his head in; choke him; retrieve the knife. Can she kidnap him? Order him to bring her outside the city? Probably; but whether she kills him after or sets him free, it will bring all the Carja after her and the Oseram. Better to escape unnoticed. Can she silence him?

"Since you're already here," he says, "there's no stopping any rumors. If you'd like, you can stay here the rest of the afternoon. I'm expected at dinner at sundown." He's smiling in his idiotic way at her across the desk. She gapes, and he frowns slightly. "You can rest, or read on the balcony," he says. "I have some things I was planning to do in here."

Immediately Ersa understands the message. "Thank you, my prince," she murmurs, her face growing hot with shame… and anger. She runs the sore part of her tongue over her teeth. Now isn't the time to reject his pity on principle. She bends to pick up the heavy book. She can't bring herself to lie; tell him she's thankful for his pity. "Thank you," she says again, hoping it doesn't sound too sullen.

She takes the book to the balcony. It's easily twice as long as the room is, extending to the right. A table and soft chairs are placed halfway down the length, in a covered area created by a cupola; the balcony is otherwise bare, built of thick sandstone. There are patterns cut in to the railings and posts, but when Ersa moves to the edge to search for an escape, it's fifty feet straight down. There's a breeze, but the sun and heat are oppressive: the view is to the south, of the jungle and wilds. It's the same view as the rooftop water cisterns. Ersa looks up and at the walls behind her, but it's sheer and she can't pinpoint their location. She peers through the open doorway, the curtain pulled aside, into the prince's bedchamber. She's been there before, filling baths and cleaning the privy, and knows there isn't much of value to her to be found. The bedchamber has a door connecting it to both the prince's study and the hall, and she wonders if she could simply walk out. She thinks she could, but now isn't the time for stubborn defiance.

It's too hot on the balcony. She feels sweaty and sleepy in the sun. She goes back to the prince's study. She hadn't really intended on reading out there in the first place. Now that she knows she can't climb a wall, there's no reason for her to linger.

Prince Avad has taken out a book of his own, as well as a scroll and writing implements. He smiles at her as she makes her way to the padded bench where their leftovers are, book still under her arm, and sits down with it. She's so full she might burst, but she likes to be near the food.

She opens the book to a carefully inked illustration. It's a map of the Claim, but a rough one. Only three settlements are marked, all close to the gate and the border. The rivers are there, but only in part: the northern half of the map gives way to emptiness, lines fading into nothingness. The top third of the page is an illustration of a landscape of tall grasses and large boulders: The Claim, but lacking in any particular landmarks. Ersa's always navigated by the shape and angle of mountains in the distance, and the mountains in the background of the illustration are vague and featureless.

She turns the page. Now there is an inked design that confuses her on sight: the hatching and patterns of several major clans, all crossed and drawn together in a way that makes her eyes hurt and her brain struggle to make the connection. Why would Wex Forgeman's Clan be bound with Tym Stoneman's? And she can't even remember the last time she saw the banner of Jyk Steelman's clan; the last of them died when she was young.

It finally strikes her that it's just decoration. The Carja illustrator copying patterns without understanding what they meant.

On the fourth page, after an elaborate title and dedication to the Carja Sun-God, the book finally begins.

The glyphs are elaborate and fancifully drawn, full of shapes and curls and extra ornamentation. The Carja alphabet is more elaborate than the Oseram, but this is beyond an extra curl in the square of _th_ : she has to sound out each letter like a child. The writer had also written in plain words like a sensible person but in long, elegant words like some kind of bard. It makes her head hurt.

The first page is only half a page long. It takes her a long time to get through it. When Ersa turns the page, the prince looks up from his writing. "What do you think?" he asks.

She shrugs, pretending to be engrossed.

It's quiet in the prince's apartments; almost silent. The prince flips through his book, taking quick notes, refilling his pen frequently. Ersa watches him through her eyelashes. The sky is clear and bright-hot outside; she watches it for clouds. She takes a bite of leftover lunch, wiping her fingers on her leggings. Her stomach hurts. Her eyes feel heavy. The letters swim and change shapes before her. Her head jerks up when she starts to nod off.

"How far have you gotten?" the prince asks eagerly, catching the movement but not that she'd almost fallen asleep.

"Uh," she says as his face falls, as he notices she's still on the second page of the book. He turns back to his writing.

Ersa commits herself to reading. She's read the same sentence two or three times when the prince gets up: she watches as he crosses the room to a shelf, pulls a scroll from it. He checks it, but it's not what he was looking for, and he puts it back and takes another. By the Forge, she's bored. Ersa finds herself watching motes of dust moving in the breeze and sunlight.

"You're not reading very quickly," the prince says.

"I'm not a fast reader, sir," Ersa says, stifling a yawn.

"You said you knew how to read." She glares up at him, too sleepy to remember to hold herself at his mercy. She's annoyed he figured out the problem.

"I do know how to read," she says. "You Carja don't know how to write." The bench is quite wide — it could be a narrow bed — and she slumps.

He smiles sideways at her and goes back to his letter.

Ersa has never noticed before, but the letter _Sh_ looks a lot like a river turtle. A two legged one, or perhaps a very round man with no arms.

The sun creeps across the floor.

"Oh, give the book to me," Prince Avad says suddenly. She starts out of her stupor, heat rushing to her face, but while his eyebrows are knit he's also smiling.

"Yes, sir," she says, swallowing and blinking rapidly to wake up. She's a soldier. She has discipline. But rich food and wine and heat, and being unused to long hours of quiet and nothingness, have left her tired and distracted. He stands from his desk and she hands him the book, straightening her posture.

She waits for him to dismiss her, threaten her, or grow angry: instead, he sits back at his desk and opens the book. "Few have ventured to Oseram land aside from her people, who name her the Claim. For such is the magpie nature of the Oseram, who believe that by calling ownership over items, relics, ruins, and the barren lands of their homes, they themselves —" Prince Avad looks up from the book. "You made a sound."

"I did not make a sound," Ersa says.

"It's a crime to lie to a prince," he says mildly, and she jumps to fix her posture. "I was joking," he adds quickly. "But you made a sound."

Ersa moves her jaw. Runs her tongue along her molars. "Oseram aren't magpies."

"It's a figure of speech."

"I know what a figure of speech is," she says. "The book is wrong. We don't claim ownership over things and pretend it gives us power. That's more of a Carja thing to do." Then she remembers she's speaking to a Sun-Prince, and looks up at the carved ceiling.

"Your land is called the Claim," the prince says, his finger still on the paragraph where he'd stopped reading.

"Because we claimed it from the machines and the wilds. There's no superstition about it. We claim it as _ours_. And by the way," she adds peevishly, "the map at the start of the book is wrong."

She watches as the prince flips back to the first page. "How is it wrong?" he asks.

"It's missing forts and settlements," Ersa says. "I won't tell you where. And the mountains are wrong too."

He's smiling at her. Not his polite smile, but a boyish, eager one. "This is exactly why I wanted to talk with you about this."

"So I could tell you how wrong it is?"

"Exactly," the prince says cheerfully.

She mulls it over. He doesn't seem to be angry with her — or even remember that she'd defied him. Or care? She can never decide if he's an idiot, a trusting fool, or both. Or what he wants this information for. But maybe it's not too late to give him what he wants and get what she needs in return. She stands up from the bench and approaches the desk. "Give me your pen," she says, and then adds: "Your majesty."

He does, and she takes the book from him, turning it to face her as she leans over his writing desk. She eyes the illustration at the top of the map. The boulders, the featureless mountains. The prince moves in surprise but doesn't stop her when she begins to draw over the mountains: adding a cliff, a distinctive ridge line, curving up like a hook. A triangular shaped outcrop. She sketches over and smooths out one peak, adding a shape like the glyph for _Te_ midway. She's not much of an artist, but this is different. Maps and marks are important for a Freebooter. "There," she says, pushing the book back and dropping the pen.

He looks at the illustration, now heavily drawn over, the mountains clearly defined. "What is it?"

She starts to say it, and then stops, her hands pressed against the leather table. She'd drawn the view she knew, the map she knew best. "My home," Ersa admits with some difficulty. "This is the view from my home." There would be houses, not grasses and boulders; the settlement was built in the valley of two hills and filled it, spilling over the edges and tops. "You only see the mountain like this from the gate or at the same angle as it," she says. "So if you're in the wilds and need to find your way back, you search for the right ridges and mountains. Once you have it lined up," she taps the picture, "you know it's straight home."

"And where is your home?" Prince Avad asks, tracing his finger along the bottom part of the map. She's standing and he's sitting, bent slightly over. She sees the exposed back of his neck, his hairline. The first knob of his spine. This close to him, she can smell the flowery soap he washes with. She must smell like sweat and old clothes.

"I'm not telling you," Ersa says, stepping back from the table. "Why? So you can send a raiding party?"

The prince sits up and turns to look at her. Rubs at his eyebrow. "No, of course not. I was just… curious."

She meets his gaze. He breaks first, pulling the book back towards him. "Thank you," he says, touching the map. She isn't sure for what. He turns back to the text of the book and clears his throat.

"…They themselves," he reads aloud, picking up where he left off, "they themselves believe they have conquered these mysteries and these lands. Truly, the Oseram are a strange people."

Prince Avad keeps reading, his voice low and soothing. Ersa stands stiffly where she is, listening at attention, the sun creeping slowly across the floor. He turns the page. She sits on the bench. He reads to her about Oseram history, the first clans, the internal wars, the ruins of the great metal city. The afternoon sun hits Ersa's feet and ankles. The prince reads to her, and she falls asleep.


	11. one. (my name)

**_one. (my name)_ **

 

 

 

Ersa doesn't sleep for long. The prince moves, or makes some sound — it wakes her with a start, leaving her wide-eyed and wary. He's closed the book, put away the book, and is writing again; he smiles when she looks angrily over at him, her neck stiff and head aching. The sun is low in the sky.

Feeling sick, her cheeks burning with humiliation, Ersa bows, excuses herself, and slinks back downstairs.

 

 

 

 

Two days later, Ersa rises before dawn with the other women. She helps fetch water for the room, washes her face, brushes her hair out with her fingers. It's getting long, much longer than she likes, but the women aren't allowed knives to cut their hair. Even brushing her chin, Ersa's is the shortest of the servants by far. But most of the male servants have short hair, and can trim or shave their beards.

She's sleepily pondering that gender gap on her way to the kitchens with Ghada and the others when a guard comes down the hallway towards them. Ersa stops, and sure enough, he approaches her, the other women passing without comment and with wary looks. "His royal highness requests you in the training yard," the soldier says. "Come with me."

This time, his guidance is needed: Ersa knows vaguely where the training yard is, but it's off limits to servants and slaves, along with the guard's quarters. Only a few freedmen work there, in the bathhouse and serving food. She doesn't know if it's a way to keep all slaves far from weapons, or if there's some deeper politics at play. It's something she'd like to know, both as a Freebooter and as an unwilling captive.

Her humiliation at the hands of the prince a few days ago aside, she's warmed to the idea of teaching him swordsplay. There's a lot to be learned by studying other soldiers, and Ersa is eager to escape and bring it all back home. And this is clearly what this morning's summoning is about, although she's a little surprised a spoiled idiot prince would bother rising this early.

The soldier leads them through stone passageways cutting underneath the palace, gradually widening as they approach the main building. When they're under the palace proper, side passages and offices line the tunnel, but the soldier keeps them on roughly straight course. Ersa memorizes the route, and studies the man's back. She's certain the prince has sent the same soldier to fetch her every time he's asked for her, which is suggestive. He's tall as an Oseram, but much thinner — broad by Carja standards, but only half Erend's size — and his armor and helmet are highly polished: dress uniform, which makes sense if he's often near enough the prince to be sent on his errands. A personal bodyguard? But she hasn't seen him hanging around the halls outside the prince's room.

"What's your name?" she asks, narrowing her eyes up at the back of his helmet. She's not sure if he'll answer; to her surprise, he answers at once, never breaking his stride.

"Squad Leader Arnhen of the prince's Guard," the soldier says.

Squad Leader. Ersa quirks her eyebrow. She's not entirely sure how the Carja military organizes itself, but at least he's not a rank and file guard. "Prince Avad, or all princes?" she asks.

"His highness Prince Avad," Arnhen says. He doesn't elaborate beyond that. Ersa almost asks if the other princes have their own guards and squad leaders, but the answer is obvious when she thinks about it: if the middle prince does, certainly the heir and young prince Itamen do.

They pause at a checkpoint, and Arnhen speaks a password to the guards there. They must be in the inner palace now: the throne rooms, both the indoor and the terraced one overlooking Meridian, as well as other rooms too important for servants to see. Even when Ersa has cleaned the prince's rooms, it's only been when they are away from them and with guards always close by.

The halls are more crowded here, not with servants and slaves but with well-dressed Carja: scribes and ministers and things, each with their own offices and rooms. Ersa gets several cold looks when she's noticed: not only does she have a slave's cuff on her arm, but she appears to be the only woman in the entire under-palace. She matches each look with a glare.

Arhnen silently leads them up stairs and down side passages until they're in yet another corner of the palace compound: the soldier's barracks and yard, built into a hollowed out section of the mesa, the yard enclosed by high walls on all sides. Although the sun must have risen, the walls are too steep to let much light in, and the yard is lit by the same torches and machine-part lamps as the rest of the palace. The yard is fairly narrow, but three or even four times as long as it is wide, both sides lined with doors and narrow windows. A group of soldiers is drilling by the entrance Arhnen and Ersa use; a handful more are practicing by themselves: archery, sparring, one man showing another how to better handle a spear. Ersa prefers a pike herself, and wants to stop and watch, but Arhnen doesn't slow and neither does she.

The far end of the yard is empty, but for two guards facing the rest of the yard, and Prince Avad sitting on a bench behind them.

He'd brought a book with him.

Ersa's stomach curdles at that first glance of him: sitting with his legs stretched out over the sandstone before him, a book in his lap, his head bowed over it. Then he looks up, and of course the idiot smiles. She drops her head.

Arhnen quietly dismisses one of the guards, and takes his place. His back is to Ersa and the prince; he either trusts her, or, more likely, is certain he can kill her before she causes the prince any harm. Ersa's not sure about that. You can kill someone with a practice sword just as easily as a real one, if you know how. But she has no intention of dying.

"Ersa," the prince says, closing his book and placing it on the bench, standing to approach her. "Good morning. I hope you slept well?"

She stares at him. She doesn't think she'll ever get used to his stupidity. _I slept on a thin mattress in a cold room with twenty other women_ , she thinks. _And I'm lucky, because I_ have _a mattress_. "Did you?" she asks.

He nods. "Although I never like this early morning training thing much," he adds, his mouth twisting to show he's complaining to be friendly. Ersa clenches her jaw and does her best not to speak. _I've been awake an hour already, and it's the same every morning._

She thinks something in her expression makes it to him — he must be used to her disgust by now — because the prince coughs to change the subject. "Well, shall we begin?"

How is he so good at taking her mood and making it worse? "If it pleases your majesty," she says as politely as she can. He glances sideways at her. She's pretty sure he knows what she's really thinking.

"Well," he says awkwardly, and doesn't follow it up. There are two wooden swords leaning against the bench he'd been sitting at, and he picks them both up, offering one to Ersa. She takes it eagerly. Too eagerly, too quickly: the temptation of having a weapon, a real weapon, is too great: the sword is carefully polished wood, heavy and weighted to be similar to a real sword in heft; it would be easy to raise it and smash it against the prince's head. The guards have real swords and real armor, but the prince is wearing a cotton shirt, trousers, and sandals, an orange sash the only sign of wealth and rank. No protection at all.

With the sword, she feels like a new person. Like _a_ person. She steps back from the prince and turns, holding the sword, testing its balance, using her right and then her left hand, thrusting into the air, parrying an imaginary blow. Months of menial tasks and she feels sluggish, weak; she handles the sword awkwardly. She curses under her breath.

"You're very good," the idiot says. Ersa turns back to the prince, who has tucked his own sword under his arm as he watches her.

"You aren't meant carry your sword like that," she says, because she's annoyed with herself and doesn't want to admit it and can't deny the prince's idiotic compliment.

"It's only a wooden sword," the prince says with a shrug.

Ersa lifts her sword, shifting her posture until the sword is extended properly in first position. She's watching the guards out of the corner of her eye; they stir, keeping an eye on her and pretending not to. "Raise your sword," she says.

The prince obeys, matching her stance. His form is good, better than she'd expected; she'd assumed him a total beginner. His hand shakes with the weight of the sword and its outstretched position, but Ersa can't fault him too much, as it's taking all her effort to keep her own hand still, her muscles straining from effort they're no longer used to bearing. Five months. Five months, and she's turned into a weakling.

She strikes at him, fast, frustrated: he blocks the thrust with a _clack_ of their wooden swords. She's surprised he managed to block her; he was clearly expecting a strike. She thrusts again. _Clack._ Steps back, thrusts forward. _Clack._

Ersa reverts to first position. The prince copies her, and they stand mirrored again, his hand shaking. "What is it that you wanted to practice, your highness?" she asks with her eyes narrowed.

"I don't really care," he says, smiling. His hand dips from the effort of holding his sword in place. Ersa strikes. He doesn't parry, off guard: the prince takes an awkward step backwards, avoiding her downward strike. She follows up, stepping towards him, a swing from the side: he backs up again.

"Raise your sword!" she snaps. She swings. He parries, but poorly, his grip and the angle of his block all wrong; she feels his arm give when the swords connect. She strikes at him again, at the sword directly, and knocks it from his hand. Prince Avad looks surprised.

Ersa is angry. She isn't sure why, but it courses through her, rushing through her limbs and knotting in her gut, her face flushing with the sharpness of it. How dare he, she's thinking. How dare he. She points the dull tip of the sword at him. "Pick it up!"

"You win," he says, smiling. "I surrender."

"Pick it up!" Ersa demands again. "Before your guards kill me for attacking you!" She's been watching, and Arhnen's hand is on the hilt of his sword, a true sword, metal, and the other has moved a pace or two closer. Prince Avad looks over her shoulder, and hastens to pick the sword back up.

"There's nothing to worry about," he says, turning to look at Arhnen.

"Get in position," Ersa says.

He looks back at her. She's back in position, her heart pounding, her teeth clenched. He raises his sword. She thrusts, he parries, she thrusts and knocks the sword from his hand.

Then she makes him pick it back up.

Twice, he tries to surrender to her, to call off the training. "You have me beaten," he says the first time. "You're an excellent swordsman," he says the second. Both times she replies with another demand, and both times he accepts her order, and Ersa continues to lead them through the exercises, allowing him one or two parries before disarming him or tapping his chest or shoulder to prove she's in control. He never takes the offensive.

Thrust. _Clack_. Strike. _Clack._ Thrust. _Clack._ "Pick it up!"

Prince Avad is not terrible. His form is excellent, and has the automatic reflexes of someone who has trained them for a long time. But he's slow to react when Ersa breaks form, prefers to defend. When she intentionally leaves herself open, or pretends to, he doesn't notice or doesn't press the advantage.

Strike. _Clack._ Parry. _Clack._

The sun has risen high enough that its light has reached the western wall of the courtyard and the heat of the day has replaced the night's chill. They're both panting, sweaty: the prince's shirt clings to his back, his forearms. Ersa has been going easy on him, but she's surprised he hasn't yet given up. That whenever she tells him to keep going, he obeys. She's tired too, her muscles aching, her strength leeched from her in captivity, but she will not be the one to call for an end.

She starts to fight him more seriously, no longer allowing him to block her before she strikes seriously. She hits him harder, too, no longer lightly tapping him to claim a victory: she's careful not to provoke the guards, but he winces when she strikes his arm, his ribs. She avoids his head.

She moves more, pressing him, and he gives ground to her. They almost back into the wall; he slides sideways when she thinks she has him cornered. She turns, thrusts, he's ready. Blocks. She presses him backwards, he blocks, retreats; he's taller and longer-limbed and has an advantage in reach, one he's finally learning to use. She moves forward, he moves back, around the bench he'd been sitting at before. Thrust. Parry. Thrust. Parry. She lets him retreat, out of reach of her sword; she jumps up onto the bench. It's close but not flush to the wall; she enjoys the moment of being taller than the prince is. She runs along it, leaps at him; _Strike_ —

He blocks. She lands, jumps back, and he takes the offensive, uses her moment of balancing and landing — he strikes, she blocks, presses back at him, strike, parry, thrust, _strike_ , and her wooden blade is at his throat.

"You win," Avad says. His chest is heaving. She's panting, too, and then he's laughing. He throws his sword to the ground between them with a clatter and laughs, bending over in his mirth. "You were showing off!"

She was showing off. The bench thing was pure flashy uselessness. She's embarrassed he noticed, embarrassed he's laughing. She holds her sword loosely at her side. Ersa isn't angry any more. She's not sure when that happened.

"You're not as bad as I thought you'd be," she says, trying to be haughty. He's bent, his hands braced against his thighs as he laughs and catches his breath; he raises his head, smiling at her. Grinning at her. Bent over, they're the same height. His eyelashes are longer than Ersa's, or maybe they just appear so because they're so dark? His eyes shining and dark. For a second, things are strangely — still, strangely quiet.

Years from this moment, he will tell her that this is the moment he fell in love with her; bent before her in the training yard, her chin raised and hair clinging wetly to her cheeks.

"That was fun," he says, straightening back up, more serious. "Thank you."

She feels shaken, vulnerable. Light-headed and exhausted. "Hmm," she says. When she turns away from Avad, she sees that a small crowd has gathered: the prince's bodyguards and three or four other soldiers. Arhnen's hand is still on the hilt of his sword, but the others appear to be spectators. She lifts her chin higher, daring them to speak or act, but the prince isn't upset and no one seems offended or surprised that an Oseram has defeated him.

"I need a bath," Prince Avad says, rubbing his eyebrow. He's frowning now, slightly, perhaps at his own sweat and smell. "You must, too. We can borrow the soldier's bathhouse."

"Oh? And we'll bathe together?" Ersa will take being sweaty over that.

The prince coughs, embarrassed. "No," he says. "I'll wash quickly, and you can take your time." He scans the spectators anxiously.

"I'll be fine with just the plunge," Ersa says stubbornly, although nothing sounds more appealing than a soak in hot water right now.

The prince shakes his head. "You can do whatever you'd like." He picks up his dropped sword, and extends his hand to take Ersa's. She wants to keep it, hold onto it, but reluctantly she hands the wooden blade to him. When her fingers brush his at the hilt, he practically jumps backwards in disgust, and her somewhat warm feelings towards him evaporate.

"Fine," she says. "If I have a choice, my prince, I'll wash my face in my room on my way back to the kitchens."

He gapes. "I was hoping we'd have lunch together," he says.

She doesn't understand him. Doesn't understand how he can jump so easily from tolerable to pathetic to almost likable to moronic again; how he's so disgusted to accidentally touch an Oseram woman but is so obsessed by the idea of learning about her people. She's also aware that he looks confounded and she looks angry and they are being observed by half a dozen Carja soldiers.

"Your lesson for the day is over, your highness," she says in a more carrying voice. "You did well, but you drop your guard on your left side and don't press your advantages. We'll work on that next time."

The prince's expression changes. He smiles politely and bows his head at her. "Of course," he says, taking her hint with calm grace. "Thank you for the lesson."

She lowers her head back, feeling like they're both acting for the benefits of the observers. "If I may leave?" she asks.

"You're free to go," he says.

Ersa turns to march out of the training yard, back to her rooms to wash up and join the women in the kitchens.

One of the guards — not the squad leader — detaches himself from the observers to escort or follow her. She's halfway across the yard when she hears footsteps hurrying after her. It's the prince. "May we —" he says when she turns. He frowns faintly, lifts his chin. "We'll train again tomorrow morning," he says.

It's not a request. "As my prince demands," Ersa says, glaring up at him before turning again to go.


	12. iv. (an ending)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i blame writerly for this  
> als je dit lees, het is jouw fault

_**iv. (an ending)** _

 

At noon exactly, the Sun King leaves the palace for the Temple of the Sun, flanked by Carja and Oseram both. Blameless Marad leads the procession, dressed in red and symbols of Jiran's regime; there hasn't been time to find out if any of the priests are still loyal.

The streets are crowded with wary Carja. Some cheer, but just as many are silent, unkneeling, uncertain yet what to make of the usurper king. Revolution king. Light-bringing king. Ersa's sure the scribes are already at work trying to give Avad a better title.

She isn't part of the procession. Erend and a few of her most trusted Vanguard are, taking the outer ring of the guards and on high alert for assassination. There will likely be no shortage of Jiran loyalists trying to remove his son for the next few months, and the symbolism of killing him before he's even crowned is too obvious to overlook. Ersa herself goes on ahead, working with Carja more familiar with Meridian to secure the procession route and temple.

The parade is timed to arrive at the temple minutes before noon. Avad kneels on the mosaic, head down, facing the Spire, where only hours before he'd sat in vigil over his father's body. Normally there would be singing and incense, Ersa has gathered; instead, the coronation is abbreviated. Marad speaks the necessary words, paints the marks on Avad's face, and retreats into the shadow, so that Avad is the only one in the sunlight at the mosaic's center.

Ersa suppresses a jump when at noon, all the great bells of the temple are rung — once, simultaneously, so that the entire temple — what feels like the entire world — vibrate and shake with the clamor and sound.

The Sun-King stands, and the bells ring again, the smaller ones in a chord and the largest one fourteen times over the song. It will not be rung again until a new king takes the throne. Drumbeats join the bells, and cheering rises from the crowd watching, spreading through Meridian. Ersa keeps a careful eye out for spectators not cheering. Several still seem wary, but no one is obviously silent.

The Sun-King raises his hand for silence, and makes a short speech: about light, change, and hope for the future. He speaks of peace.

He does not mention the Oseram.

Ersa runs her tongue over her teeth and stays still, catching Erend glancing worriedly at her, also hearing the omission.

This is it, this is the gamble. This is what she handed to Avad, a year ago in the claim. Her trust for his promise. It's too early yet to call it broken, but the omission catches her, strings her tight, and must have caught the ear of every other Oseram who had sworn himself to Avad's cause. He did not mention the Oseram. He did not.

Could he have been lying? Could his promises have meant nothing? Had he simply been an ordinary Carja, saying whatever would get him the army he desired? Had he been an ordinary man, saying whatever would get Ersa in his bed?

It's too early. It's too early. It's too early to take back her faith in him, but the omission tugs at her, winds her heart tight in her gut.

It isn't a long speech. When the Sun-King is finished, the crowd cheers more loudly than before, relieved by his promises for an end to killings. Ersa should cheer as well, lead by example. She forces out a smile. She's not the only Oseram to stay silent.

The royal larder and the abandoned homes of nobility are raided for wine and foodstuffs, which are laid out in the streets in celebration. Someone has thought to find musicians. Half of the Maizelands still burn, half of the soldiers are still fighting, securing Meridian's new regime, but the message needs to be of victory, of security and celebration. Ersa understands that, had been part of those discussions.

He hadn't mentioned the Oseram.

She isn't yet in the mood to celebrate.

With the coronation over, the Sun-King is escorted back to the palace: he likely will not be celebrating yet either, with so much left to do. Instead of joining him — Ersa doesn't trust herself not to be angry — she takes the great elevators down to the farmland below to join in the securing of Meridian.


	13. one. (all the stars are closer)

_**one. (all the stars are closer.)** _

 

Jaya stops Ersa before she can enter the canteen. She's sore and in a poor mood, both that a morning of basic swordspractice can leave her so worn out, and at Prince Avad's behavior. She'd thought… she isn't sure. What Ersa does know is that for half a second she'd almost liked the prince, and now she hates him again. And she's supposed to keep playing at being his friend for another month and a half? She isn't sure she has it in her.

She's hungry, and not at all happy when Jaya grabs her arm. "What is it?"

"Don't speak to me that way," Jaya says airily. They're friends, of a sort, largely due to a shared fondness for Aya, but Jaya is a Carja freewoman and right now Ersa has little patience for the entire tribe.

"Don't grab my arm," Ersa retorts. "Don't you know I survived the Sun Ring?"

Jaya rolls her dark eyes. "I take it you haven't heard the news. Aya's been promoted to overseer. Do you have any shards?"

"What?" Ersa's brain stutters. "What? _What?_ " Aya — overseer — shards? _Help Aya,_ she'd told the prince. Everything seems to whirl around. Help Aya. Aya's been promoted to overseer. So he— so she — Ersa doesn't know what to say. She settles on the one part she can express an easy opinion on: "Of course I don't have shards."

"I didn't think so," Jaya says, quirking her eyebrow at Ersa's probably too obvious bewilderment. "I thought I'd ask. Ghada gave me a bronze ring to sell, and I have a few shards saved. I was going into the city to buy us some treat, to celebrate."

Ersa's brain stutters again. "Wait," she says. She ducks into the barracks, Jaya following. Aya is at her cot, packing up her meager possessions.

"Ersa!" she says when she sees her enter. "Did you hear the news?" Aya is smiling, nervous, but excited.

"Jaya just told me! I'm so happy for you," Ersa says, meaning it, crossing the tiny room to embrace her friend. "But why are you packing?"

"They're moving me up a level," Aya says, pulling away and taking Ersa's hands. She laughs anxiously. "I'm getting my own niche, just like Rana has. There's even a curtain for privacy. I can't believe it. Can you imagine me overseeing anyone?"

"Not at all," Ersa says. Aya laughs, sounding happier. "Hold on a moment," Ersa adds, pulling herself from her friend's grasp. She goes to her cot, and hesitates for only the briefest moment before pulling her knife from beneath her thin mattress. Her knife — the knife she'd stolen from the prince. It has a fine wooden handle, polished and inlaid with silver, and a sharp blade. It will certainly fetch a few shards on the market.

It's also Ersa's only weapon, meager though it is. Can she be sure she'll get another? Will the prince be so careless with his belongings twice? _Of course he will, the idiot_ , she thinks, but the thought of giving up even this tiny lifeline…

She pulls out the knife and hands it to Jaya. "Here, sell this too."

Jaya takes the knife, examines it, turning it over in her hands. She looks up at Ersa questioningly, and Ersa tries to communicate to both her and Aya _don't ask_ without saying the words.

They've both worked in the palace longer than she has. They know better than to ask too many questions.

Jaya leaves to go purchase a small feast, and Ersa burns with jealousy over her freedom to do so. Both Jaya and Aya are free women, indentured but not enslaved to the Sun-King, free to leave the palace in those hours they have to themselves. Jaya has a lover among the Carja guards and leaves fairly often to meet him; Aya only ventures out to pray at the temple of the sun. Even Ghada, a slave like Ersa, owns jewelry and gifts from a wealthy lover, can muster wealth for feasts or maybe even her own freedom.

All Ersa owns is a piece of blue tile. She hasn't left the palace since the day she arrived, staggering and dizzy with broken ribs from the Sun Ring, already wearing the manacle that marked her as the Sun-King's property. She was fortunate. Lesser Carja branded their slave's skin to prove ownership.

But this isn't the time for her to feel sorry for herself.

Ersa helps Aya pack up what little she has, and skips eating her daily meal to help her move it up a level. Instead of rooms packed with cots, the overseers and high ranking servants are given their own niches along endless halls. There are no windows, but Aya's niche has a bed, a stool and metal pitcher, and a curtain to act as a door. It's barely larger than the furniture within, but it's almost enough to make Ersa jealous. "You know what this reminds me of? My childhood room," she jokes, helping Aya spread a red blanket over the bare mattress.

"Was it also so big?" Aya asks. Ersa glances over to make sure she's joking.

"Even more!" Ersa says. "I wanted a bit of space for myself, so I cleaned a corner of our storage room, at the very top of my father's house. There wasn't even enough room for me to stand up straight." But even less room for her father or uncles to, and there was no way Ersa's father would have climbed the ladders to the top section of the house even if he were sober.

"So, so," Aya says. "My new quarters are twice the size." She gestures upwards. The ceiling is too high for such a small room, giving a well-like effect.

"That famous Carja decadence!" Ersa sits on the bed.

"You don't talk about Oseram things very often," Aya says.

"There's not much point," Ersa says. "What's there to tell? I'm some Oseram warrior-woman who got herself captured by the Sun-King." She says it lightly as she can, trying to hide the bitter edge she feels. There are only two kinds of memories she has: the ones she doesn't want to discuss because they're about her bastard father, or the ones that are too painful to talk about because it's all she can do to keep her fears under control. Is her brother alive? Is he safe? Or has he…

Erend is all she has left. She has friends, companions she'd trust with her life in a battle. She has Aya, Jaya, and Ghada. But Erend is all she _has_ , since the day she came back home for him and swore to never leave him behind again. Taking care of her brother had given her the drive she'd needed to push herself farther, to make up for leaving him in the first place —

Her imaginings veer wildly between Erend, killed in the Sun Ring, to Erend, drunk and in a stupor in a squalid room, their father in his youth.

She forces her mind away. "I'd much rather talk about you! I'm so happy for you, Aya, really. There's no one who deserves good fortune more."

"Well, I'm terrified," Aya says in a matter-of-fact tone, sitting next to Ersa on the bed. "And you aren't just some Oseram woman."

"Fine," Ersa says airily, "I'm the most important Oseram woman who ever lived. Now, when you're bossing others around, are you going to turn extremely firm and haughty?"

They spend the rest of their noon rest period chatting in Aya's new room. Ersa misses her meal, but it's worth it when Jaya returns. That night, after work is finished for the day, the women all gather in Aya's quarters. Jaya has bought them sweet maizecakes, glazed and studded with dried fruit and crystalized honey, and a bottle of unwatered wine. They drink and stay up far too late toasting to Aya's good fortune and to all of their futures — to Aya, to Jaya's future marriage, to Ghada's future wealth and happiness — _to my freedom, to my escape_ , Ersa adds, when they toast to Ersa's victory in the Sun-Ring, to her past and not her future.

Jaya complains about market prices, Ghada deflects teasing about the ring she'd been given and pawned, dropping mysterious hints about being able to acquire a new one, and they all urge Aya to practice her overseeing on them, laughing at the embarrassment she shows even pretending to give orders. For one night, for the first time, Ersa feels … light. At ease.

The alcohol helps.

 

 

 

 

She wakes up at dawn somewhat miserable and hungover, summoned to the training ground to meet the prince before she can even gather her thoughts together enough to drag herself out of bed.

Her good mood hasn't lasted the night — the lack of sleep and hangover are probably at least partially to blame — and when she sees Prince Avad in the training yard, reading a book on a bench as he had the day before, she's irritated on sight.

The night before had been … fun, the first real fun she'd had since coming to this damned palace, and the realization that it's over, that it's back to this, that she has to spend her time pretending to be friends when she knows what actually being friends is like —

By the forge, her head hurts. How does her brother stand it?

"Ersa!" The prince says when he sees her — when his guard has escorted her over, bowed, and stepped a few polite feet away. The prince puts his book down, stands, and runs his hand over his shirt to smooth it. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

He is the stupidest person Ersa has ever met. "No," she says, too tired to attempt a lie. "Did you?"

He was clearly expecting a polite 'yes.' "I'm sorry," he says.

She wants to hit him in his stupid face. "Shall we get started?" she grumbles.

"Of course." He's looking at her closely, frowning very slightly, trying to figure out what's wrong, why his pet Oseram is so unhappy. Something like that. Ersa picks up one of the practice swords, and he takes the other.

 _What could be making my best Oseram buddy so unhappy_? she thinks to herself, meanly. _Isn't she happy to be with me, the idiot prince of Meridian?_

"Get in position," she says. She almost doesn't need to; the prince is already raising his sword, not making conversation, smiling quickly at her when she gives the order.

She strikes. It's a real strike, not a slow practice one, telegraphed to allow the prince time to see and block. She's angry at him. _Angry_. She's…

It's not anger, not exactly. No. She strikes, and he barely parries, a weak block she presses through, forcing him to take a step back. She lunges, he steps aside, blocking her next blow. He's terrible at offensive swordsplay, but good at defense. She pictures herself, skinny and small at thirteen, up against the captain of her village's guard. Defending because she hasn't the strength to go on the offensive.

 _Strike_. Parry.

 _Strike_.

She's less gentle than she was yesterday, pushing at the limits of the prince's skill. Ersa isn't so angry that she's reckless, doesn't aim for his head or do anything to provoke the prince's guards to kill her in his defense. She wants to beat him until he's bruised, but her own survival still comes first. Her head is pounding. She pushes him, fights quickly, her eyes narrowed with determination.

She's angry with him. She's not angry with him. She's…

 _Help Aya_.

Overhand blow, he counters, she strikes, hitting his upper arm. He stumbles, falters, lowering his sword for a moment as he recovers — she takes an angry risk, swinging and stopping her practice sword inches from his exposed throat.

She isn't immediately shot with an arrow or run through with a sword, but he raises his hand, looking over her shoulder, to stop whatever Carja she just alarmed. It would be easy to kill him. Even without a knife.

But she can't anymore. "Thank you," she says.

"You're quite welcome," the prince says, frowning slightly in confusion, the reply automatic and not heartfelt.

She's breathing heavily, sweat pooling under her arms. So is he. "For Aya," she says, still holding the sword at his throat.

 _Oh_ , his expression says. He looks — relieved? Pleased? She's angry and out of breath, angry at him because she knows she can't be. He kept his promise. She asked him to, and he did. Aya's happiness, their celebration in her room, the sweet cakes — it was so small, so meager, and it was all because of him. Because she'd asked. And now Ersa owes her happiness, that night, to him. He might actually have meant it when he said he'd help her escape. She might someday owe him that, too.

"I made you a promise," he says. "I hope eventually you'll believe me when I do."

She suspects he might be joking, teasing her a little. Ersa lowers her sword, steps away, head spinning and aching, annoyed and … something else, something warmer. She steps back, turns back to him, raises her sword again. Her head spins and buzzes. "I take it back," she says, her heart pounding: he's teasing her and she's joking back. Her. Ersa. To the _prince_. "I _don't_ thank you. Raise your sword. The sun's barely up, and I'm going to beat you black and blue before midmorning."


	14. one. (this loneliness won't go away)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a lot of fun changing around what ersa's mental name for avad is, depending on how she feels towards him in the moment. enough that i wanted to point it out here, lol.

"Ow!"

Ghada sighs loudly from behind Ersa. "When was the last time you brushed your hair?"

"I keep it short for a reason — ow! I asked you to braid it, not rip it out!"

Jaya, sitting on the next cot over, laughs.

"This wouldn't be happening if I could just cut it," Ersa mutters, sitting crosslegged on her cot as Ghada pulls out her scalp hair by hair. She's felt worse pain, but this is just _annoying_.

"Done," Ghada says, with one final tug. Ersa immediately flies to touch her head, examine the new braid. Her hair hasn't grown so long that it's _much_ of a braid — only as long as her finger — but Ghada has woven all of Ersa's hair into it so that her entire scalp feels tight… and when she shakes her head, no stray locks fly into her eyes.

"Thank you," she says, tugging at the pleat. She frowns. "Did you put a ribbon on me?"

Ghada laughs. "A bit of blue silk I had. You want to impress the prince, don't you?"

"Not at all," Ersa says.

It had been two weeks since she and Prince Avad had begun training together. The news had travelled quickly, but it hadn't turned out too badly: there was some amusement in people's reactions that Ersa couldn't quite parse, but apparently. being Avad's sparring partner was better regarded than being his whore.

Ersa felt the same way. Each morning for the past two weeks, they'd meet just past dawn. The Prince would dutifully allow her to order him around the training yard; after, they would have an early lunch together as he read from his book and asked her questions about the accuracy. Ersa would eat his portion and hers and answer, mostly, although it wasn't like she knew the ins and outs of Oseram history in any great detail. She spent her afternoons and evenings scrubbing floors under Aya's supervision, which left her hands cracked and sore but stopped people from speculating she was taking it easy.

Things between her and the prince had seemed to ease in some way, some way Ersa doesn't care to name or examine. But that doesn't mean her loyalties have changed.

She's been a slave of the Sun-King for over half a year. She doesn't know the exact date, the exact length of time, but the proof is in her plait. She tugs at the ribbon.

Jaya lies back on her bed. With Aya moved to the overseer's quarters, she hasn't had much time to spend with them, and Ersa has been spending more of her free minutes with Jaya and Ghada. The two women are close friends, man and fashion crazy, but they hadn't shut Ersa out when Aya had moved, despite Aya really having been the one vouching for her.

It's… not bad, to have such female friends. Although Ersa can't say she's used to it.

"My love has asked to meet tomorrow," Ghada is saying, now combing through her own hair, which is long and silky and black in a way Ersa's never could be.

"I have a new theory about him," Ersa says, lying back on her cot. Ghada is still there, and so she ends up resting her head in her friend's lap. "I think he doesn't exist at all. You've invented him, and are buying yourself gifts with a secret stash of shards."

"Ooh, that would be clever," Jaya says, leaning forward.

"Would be, but isn't!" Ghada says smugly.

"You know, I asked Ulan once," Jaya says, referring to one of the friendlier Carja guards. He'd proven himself to the women slaves years ago, standing up for them against his fellow guards when some had tried to take advantage of the women. Now he was fairly popular. Ersa had attacked him when she'd first arrived, not knowing, seeing only the Carja armor. He wasn't as friendly to _her_ , and she couldn't blame him for it.

"About what?" Ghada asks suspiciously.

"Your mystery lover who might not exist! I've seen him pass along messages for you two. But he wouldn't tell me either."

"Ghada has paid him off with her hidden fortune," Ersa says mysteriously. Ghada hits the side of her head playfully.

"We can't all be favorites of princes!"

"I've told you! I'm not!" Ersa grumbles.

"Oh, that reminds me," Jaya says, suddenly more serious. "I spoke to Davan earlier." Davan was her lover, another Carja guard.

"Oh, have you moved on to actual conversation?" Ersa asks.

Jaya shakes her head with a little frown. "He says the Queen is pregnant."

"Again?" Ersa shifts out of Ghada's lap. "It's barely been a month."

Jaya shrugs. "That's what he says. He heard it from the maids."

"Which maids?" one of the women also in the room during their rest period calls over from her bed, where she and one of her friends have been talking. There isn't real privacy anywhere in the slave quarters, and Ersa isn't surprised they were overheard.

"Rana, he said," Jaya calls back.

"She can't know after only a month," Ersa says, frowning and sitting back upright. "Can she?" Although Ersa is herself a woman, she has to admit she isn't the most informed when it comes to such womanly issues. She's spent her life around soldiers and men, with no immediate female family, and has never been in such a position herself.

Ghada looks uncertain. "Not for certain, but she might have a suspicion…"

"Or she _wants_ to bear another son," Jaya suggests darkly.

"How many princes does one tribe need?" Ersa asks.

"Hush," Ghada says warningly. Ersa shoots her a look, and catches the women across the room, talking, leaving the room. Likely to spread the news and get more information. There's some subtext here she isn't picking up on, and it's frustrating. Frustrating enough that she briefly considers asking the prince about it the next day.

After a moment, Jaya changes the subject to Davan, and Ghada joins in the discussion of lovers. Ersa tugs at her braided hair and lets the subject go.

 

 

 

 

The next dawn, Ersa is led not to the training yard, but to Prince Avad's apartments. The King's advisor, Marad, is leaving the rooms just as Ersa and her guard arrive. He smiles at her as they pass, but doesn't slow his stride.

Inside, Avad is clearly in the middle of things. "Good morning," he says with a smile at Ersa, as the door closes solidly behind her. "I'm sorry I'm in something of a hurry, but father has asked me to court today."

Normally, he dresses in simple Carja pants, overshirt, and sash, not all that different than Ersa's own clothing in the palace, although embroidered and silken. Today he's wearing much more formal clothing, a silken jacket, knotted linen shirt, head cover and machine-part ornamentation: with a start, Ersa realizes she's had the wrong impression. Prince Avad doesn't dress _like her_. Rather, until now she's only ever really seen him in private moments, alone in his room or in the training room.

"Alright," she says, not sure what to make of this minor revelation. She doesn't move to sit down. She doesn't like seeing him in Carja clothes — not that she likes seeing him, period, although… she doesn't examine it, merely stands at the doorway with her arms folded behind her.

Prince Avad is going through his bookshelves, clearly searching for something. His writing desk already has a few books piled up.

"He doesn't … often request us," he continues, answering a question beginning to form in Ersa's mind. "I won't have time to train today, and tomorrow we'll be leaving for Sunfall, so I'm not sure when we'll be able to meet again." Avad pages through a book, and seems to find whatever he had been searching for; he brings the book to his desk, placing it down and smiling up at Ersa. He blinks.

"You've changed your hair."

"Why are Carja so obsessed with hair?" Ersa asks. "It's a braid. Have none of you seen one before?" She hadn't untied it from the night before, but she had borrowed a pin from Ghada to tuck the tail of it away.

"No, I…" the prince seems to have lost his train of thought, for some reason. "It suits you," he says politely.

"No, it doesn't," Ersa says. He smiles, and she sees him look her over.

"At ease," he orders lightly.

She frowns and relaxes her stance. "Sir."

"I'm sorry to leave on such short notice," the prince continues. "I should return within a week."

Ersa wonders why he thinks she'd care. Although she will miss the extra food: eating the prince's lunch every day has had her start to regain a bit of the weight she's lost since her capture, and return some of her strength. And she does enjoy having a weapon, even a wooden one, in her hands each morning.

And she supposes spending time with the prince isn't the _worst_ thing she's ever had to do.

"Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?" the prince continues, likely blissfully unaware of Ersa's train of thought, probably certain his best buddy will miss him horribly.

 _You could get me out of here_. "Why are you going to Sunfall?" Ersa asks.

"Father requires it," Avad says blandly. He looks her over again, pressing his palm against his stack of books. "He seeks the Sun's blessing… for the Queen Consort."

"Because she's pregnant?"

Avad frowns, leaning towards her. "Where did you hear that?" there's some unfamiliar sharpness in his tone, and Ersa feels her back straighten.

"None of your business." She won't sell out Jaya, or Davan, or Rana. Can he really not be aware of how much the servants gossip?

She's said the wrong thing. Prince Avad's back straightens, too, and all the warmth is gone from his voice and eyes when he responds. "It's very much my business," he says. "If the Sun-King knew there was already speculation on his heir, he would be extremely unhappy." Ersa frowns. "What?" he adds. "Ask."

"If she is pregnant, what's it matter?" she says finally. "If he wants another son, shouldn't this calm him down?"

"Only if she _bears_ him a son, and one he finds… satisfactory," Avad says carefully, with a bitter smile. He rubs at his forehead. "Make no mistake," he adds. "The Sun-King is an exceedingly intelligent, and shrewd man. But he… has suffered many disappointments in his life, and has no patience for more."

There's much left unsaid here, but Ersa isn't sure how to press into it, how far her freedom to speak extends. She's never asked the prince about his family — has no faith in her ability to not hide her disgust, her loathing, her hatred for everything Avad and his bloodline stand for — and can't risk him putting an end to their deal. She doesn't know what to ask. But perhaps…

Well… Ersa knows what it's like to be trapped with a terrible father.

At least her father isn't a war-mad murderer.

Her train of thought abruptly crashes to a realization that makes her heart twist in her gut. "Hold on," Ersa says, taking an almost involuntary step towards the prince. "Are you going there to watch _sacrifices_?"

"Yes," Prince Avad says. "It's not that I want to," he adds, frowning, possibly because Ersa can feel herself almost shaking with disgust.

"Then put a stop to it!"

"It's not that simple!"

Ersa snaps her mouth shut. She hasn't heard the prince sound angry before, not really; he's glaring at her now, across the room, and turns away, his arms crossed. Maybe she went too far. She's _right_ , obviously, but he's still some damn Carja prince.

This whole situation is…

She stands there, at attention, watching him, his side profile. He doesn't appear to be looking at anything in particular, but his jaw moves. He covers his mouth with one hand. His eyes dark and downcast as he frowns. "I nearly died there," Ersa says.

She's not sure why she does, what makes her say it. But now the words are out of her mouth, and she clenches her fists at her side. "I almost died there, while you sat in the stands and watched. Do you like it? Is it fun?"

"Of course I don't like it," Prince Avad says, closing his eyes, turning back to look at her. "I've told you that before. I hate it. But I don't have a choice. The best I can do is not _see_."

"That's not good enough," she says, her voice low and tight. The sand beneath her feet. Sweating in the sun. The cheers and shouting of the crowd. An awareness the Sun-King was up there somewhere — faces at a dais, far above her. The Kestrels entering the arena, their armor blinding, her feet bare.

Her heart is pounding, her head feels tight. She can knock him over with his desk, his books, her fists. Flee past the guards, walk past, pretending to be dismissed, out of the palace, out of Meridian, out of Carja lands —

"I know it's not," the Carja prince says. He walks over to her, and she takes a step back, butting against the door. He stops, his expression concerned. "You're pale."

"I'm angry," Ersa says. She imagines killing — the blood on her bare arms. She'd killed before, but the ring had been different, harder. She'd gone in and known she was about to die.

The prince extends his hand to her, as though he wants to comfort her — he changes his mind, rightfully so. She tries to imagine killing him, smashing his head into the floor. She can't. Not the prince. The Sun-King, certainly. A nameless guard, easily. The prince…

She takes a deep breath, aware he can see her steady herself. She doesn't like that, but she needs the air. "Who is being killed?"

"I don't know," the prince says, eyeing her cautiously. His eyes dark and concerned when she meets them. "But I will watch them."

She nods, once, jerkily. Trying to examine herself. She hadn't expected this, this rush of anger and feeling. She'd known others were still dying, but… but Ersa doesn't let herself think about it. She can't afford to. She must survive.

But imagining the prince at Sunfall… watching, just as he had been there when it had been her in that ring…

She looks away from him, stares past him at a fixed distance. She's stronger than this. She'll survive this.

"Would you…" the prince hesitates. "…like to come? With me, to Sunfall?"

"What?" She looks up at him again, her mind white with shock. "Why — why in this world or any other would I want to?"

He runs his hand over his face. "Brightmarket is beautiful, and I always enjoy the boat across the lake. And it isn't Meridian. You wouldn't have to watch or be anywhere near the Sun-Ring. Perhaps…"

She starts to laugh. It's a wild, desperate, unfunny laugh, but now Ersa can't stop, her arm crossing her gut. He's offering her — as though it's a vacation. Bring her to the place she nearly died, the place she became a slave, for a _break_. And she wants to leave Meridian, wishes to leave so desperately, so sharply, that even crossing the bridge out of the palace would be a relief. He's offering to bring her to the last place she'd ever chose to go, and by the forge, she _wants_ to. Ersa laughs, doubling over, her head and heart and gut aching and hurting. "Are you serious?" she chokes out, looking up at him.

Avad looks gravely down at her. "I wish I could give you anything else."

"My freedom," she suggests.

He smiles, and his eyes reflect exactly how she feels, the twisted pain and longing to go somewhere, anywhere, that isn't where she is so trapped.

"As soon as I am able, I will give it to you," is Avad's second promise to Ersa.

It will be the second one he keeps, although she does not yet know it.


	15. v. (i need you closer to me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i like writing these chapters the best, thus the quick updates, but damn if this one didn't get super long. 
> 
> the story is finally getting to the part/s i've been looking forward to, tho. and if you're liking/hating/reading it, i'd really appreciate a comment!

"Ersa Kingmaker!"

Ersa is hot, sweaty, and tired after the journey back from Brightmarket, but she turns and smiles, and then grimaces, at Petra's call. "Don't let that catch on," she calls back, waving her Carja escort on and veering from the road. Petra and about a dozen Oseram are gathered outside the gate to Meridian Village, surrounded by crates and half-loaded carts. Ersa isn't surprised, but the sight still pulls at her. In the month since the Sun-King Avad took the throne, many of the Oseram they'd gathered have begun to return to the Claim with their promised goods and shards. Ersa had known they would, but every departure stings. "You're heading home now too?"

"Yes, but not to the Claim," Petra says, her hands on her hips. "Your king gave me payment for my cannons today," she says, her grin widening at Ersa's puzzlement. "A land charter, north of Daytower. Olin scouted it out; there's a great old ruin and now it's mine."

"You're founding a free city in Carja land?" Ersa echoes, taken aback despite her efforts.

"Damn straight I am. I've spent too many years listening to the Ealdormen telling me to get married and lend my iron to a husband, and I'm not about to shave my head like you did," Petra laughs.

"I wouldn't have needed to if I was as good at the forge as you," Ersa points out.

Petra smirks and shrugs. "We'll have to pay the king's taxes, but they're no higher than the Claim's, and Avad says we can use what laws we please. He gave a charter to Ralert, too, which was a mistake if you ask me." As Petra speaks, she produces a scroll from her hip pocket, which she hands to Ersa to examine. It's heavy and ornate, and Ersa doesn't need to unfurl it to judge it legitimate.

"I'm surprised you didn't know already," Petra continues. "I thought you and the new king were joined at the hip. Literally, at times," she adds with a smirk.

"I've been in Brightmarket these past few days," Ersa says, handing the scroll back and trying to ignore both the suggestive joke and the underlying statement. The fact is that she _didn't_ know. Ersa has barely spoken to Avad in the past weeks, outside of meetings on governance. It's not entirely her fault: they've both been hard at work, Avad with appointing ministers and government to correct and halt his father's policies, and Ersa with trying to keep the peace in the kingdom.

"The loyalists are menacing the region, and the governor is convinced an invasion is next. Avad's already sent more Carja, and there's half a dozen Vanguard there now too, but nothing calms him down. He's certain he'll wake up to boats full of Jiran's men, and won't listen to reason or sense." And certainly not from an Oseram woman, even one with the authority to speak for the king.

The governor isn't exactly wrong to worry. Jiran's loyalists had fled north, coalescing around Sunfall before Avad's men could muster the force to drive them out; now there was word that Prince Itamen and the Queen Consort were ensconced there as well. There had been a brief and bloody battle for the Blazon Arch, but Avad's men had been unable to hold it, isolated across the lake. It had been their first real loss, and Brightmarket was the obvious target for a future loyalist invasion. Never mind that there was no way the loyalists would be able to hold it for long, the town was unwalled and not well fortified on the lake shore.

"And I don't suppose you can keep a garrison there," Petra muses.

"Not right now, and a single cannon won't ease his mind or do much to stop an invasion." Ersa scoffs. "I give up for now. Maybe the king will have some idea."

"Don't be ridiculous," Petra says. "I'll have some plan for you within the month, or I'm not the best forgewoman the Oseram have ever mined." She winks at Ersa.

"If you do, I'll find you another town charter myself," Ersa says.

"Hello there, handsome," Petra calls, confusing Ersa for a moment until she looks over her shoulder. Janeva is marching towards them, looking irritated. Lately, that's been happening more and more often. He doesn't seem to appreciate Petra's compliment, at any rate.

"The Sun-King requests your presence, immediately," Janeva says to Ersa.

She crosses her arms. "Has something happened?"

"What's happened is that he wants to see you," Janeva says. "He's in the royal crypts. I've been looking for you all morning."

"I only just returned from Brightmarket."

"I know," Janeva says impatiently. "That's why I came here, to tell you. Petra Forgewoman," Janeva adds stiffly, standing at perfect attention. "May the sun light your journey east."

"Thanks," Petra says, amused.

"I'll come visit, if we don't meet again before you leave," Ersa says, waving her hand. "If you come up with any magical solutions to Brightmarket, send word."

Ersa has never visited the royal crypts before, and has never had an interest in doing so. They're dug into the mesa of the Spire, with an elaborate antechamber decorated and filled with offerings and candles, dedicated priests in constant devotions to their former kings. Leaving Janeva behind at the entrance, Ersa ventures further into the tombs. The crypts are a honeycomb of chambers and side-rooms, each tomb gilt with machine part ornamentation and tile mosaics covering wall, floor, and ceiling. The first Sun-King's chamber is as big as Meridian's throne room; each proceeding room is slightly smaller but no less elaborate, containing only the raised bed that hold the bones of the dead king.

Ersa proceeds through a dozen rooms. In the thirteenth, the bed is uncovered, surrounded by candles, draped with silken banners, and scented with incense.

And four Sun-Priests, hands spread in prayer, heads bowed as they sing.

Avad stands at the head of his father's tomb, hands clasped behind his back, watching the blessing. When he sees Ersa in the doorway, he nods to the side and moves silently into the room behind him. She follows.

This crypt is clearly not intended for a Sun-King. Three stone caskets, two yet open, fill the center of the small chamber, niches line the walls, and candles flicker and melt in the corners. There is no door between it and the king's chamber, but the stone walls are so thick it serves to muffle the sound of singing almost completely.

Avad rests his hand on the middle casket. "This was to be my tomb," he says. "Once, when we were small, Kadaman knocked me in and threatened to cover it and leave me there."

Ersa tries to imagine knowing where your bones will be laid to rest from such a young age. She imagines him lying there, in that stone case, cold and pale and unmoving in death. But no: he's the Sun-King now. He'll have an elaborate chamber all his own.

"This is Arasha, Jiran's first queen," Avad says, moving to the covered tomb. "Kadaman's mother. She died giving birth to what would have been my elder sister, had the child lived. My mother wasn't given a tomb of her own, but her niche is this one here. I've never been sure if my father loved Arasha best of his wives, or if he simply didn't want to bother digging a bigger room."

Avad runs his fingers gently over the queen's grave. "You're angry with me," he says. "Tell me why."

There's no sense denying it. "Why are there Sun-Priests blessing the Mad King's body?" Ersa asks, her voice brittle.

"He was my father," Avad says, his expression serious and sad.

"Your father who you killed and overthrew! Who you have never said one kind word about, and with good reason! His body should be left for Glinthawks to tear to shreds, not treated like the vessel of some stupid sun god!"

"He was my _father_ ," Avad repeats.

"And so that erases everything else? Now that you're the Sun-King, it's back to tradition and old laws?" Ersa snaps. She's trying to keep her voice down, aware of the priests in the next chamber, but it isn't easy.

Avad stops short — frowns slightly, and then runs his hand over his mouth and chin. "That's why you've been avoiding me," he says, a statement instead of a question. "You think I've betrayed my promises to you."

Ersa fumes. She'd realized some time ago that the idiot prince actually _was_ clever, more clever than she'd given him credit for, but there are times that grates at her. "Not yet," she admits shortly, her arms crossing in front of her chest.

"But yes," he says. She meets his gaze angrily. "I am the second son of a man who decided decades ago that my brother and I were not the heirs he desired," Avad reminds her.

"I'm the unnecessary daughter of a drunkard," Ersa retorts. "We've both moved past those things." She tightens her grip on herself, unsure of the point he's trying to make, the excuse he's giving her. He must honor his father because his father was a bastard? Avad is smarter than that, she knows, but the image of him kneeling before his father's blooded body is still sharp in her mind, and if he starts in his grief to romanticize…

"We may have, but Meridian has not. They don't know me, they only know that I am the son of the man in the next room. If I am to claim to be the rightful heir of the Radiant Line," Avad says, waving his arm at nothing in particular — the room, the niches, the bones held within — "I must act the part. Even as I keep my other promises."

"He doesn't deserve a proper burial," Ersa says, because she can't argue with his logic. She knows he's right, even though she wishes he weren't, wishes that Avad, the Avad she'd _known_ , been with in the Claim, were the one on the throne. They're the same man. But they're also not.

"That is for the Sun to decide," Avad says, lifting his palm towards the ceiling piously.

"You're hard to argue with," Ersa snaps, uncrossing her arms to point at him.

"I've had time to practice against the best," he says, with a small smile.

Damn him, for it working on her.

"I need more than words for the future," Ersa says. "Most of my people have left Meridian already."

"But some will stay on Carja lands. Petra and Ralert both requested land charters as rewards for service."

"Ralert is a bunghole," Ersa says, cross because Avad is _right_ , but his solution is slower than she'd wished for.

"Petra said the same thing. Has there ever been an Ealdorman your people have approved of?"

"She'll be the first, and the people in the Claim will hate her, too," Ersa says sourly. Women aren't meant to lead, in Oseram and Carja lands alike.

"And you?" Avad asks. His tone is casual, conversational, and he's a good actor but she knows him too well by now to be fooled by it.

"I'll stay in Meridian until I'm satisfied," Ersa says. She laughs dryly. "Which will not happen in my lifetime, so you don't have that to fear."

"If there was something I could do to make you happy, I would," Avad tells her, all gravitas and wide-eyed sadness.

_Elevate my people. Bring peace to both our lands. Remove your crown and return to the man you were in the Claim._

"You're Sun-King now," she says, a reminder she bitterly knows he doesn't need.

 

 

 

They leave the tombs, and Janeva and a few Carja guards join them on the walk back to Meridian. On the way, Ersa reports the situation in Brightmarket; Avad asks her a few questions here and there but stays mostly silent as she speaks.

By the end of his reign, Jiran had rarely left the palace of Meridian, and when he had, it had been under heavy guard and hidden in a litter. Avad is a new enough king that many stop to stare or bow when he passes, walking slowly with his arms behind his back. There are many people in the streets of the city under the mesa, where rebuilding is underway in full force. The upper city is quieter: many who had lived there had fled with the other loyalists during and after the battle.

The Sun-King visits the temple, where his father's body is still being prepared for burial, treated with machine-oils and minerals to be cleaned by the sun. Many of the priesthood, in particular, had abandoned Avad in the battle. Many of those who remained were still wary of him who had killed the prior embodiment of the sun.

After, they return to the palace. Ersa feels the same pang she so far always feels, crossing the great bridge. She is free to come and go as she pleases, she is no one's captive, but it does not yet feel like _Avad's_ palace, let alone her home. There are nobles waiting with petitions, and she leaves for long enough to check in with Erend and the other Vanguard, now headquartered in the barracks she and the prince once trained in.

Some of the so-called Vanguard are itching to return to the Claim with the rest of their people. Ersa hasn't decided yet if she should stop them.

After dinner, she's summoned back to the Sun-King by an increasingly exasperated Janeva.

"I'm one of the Sun-King's personal guard, not his personal messenger," Janeva complains on the way back to the palace.

"That's what comes of serving your king," Ersa says dryly.

"Don't keep wandering off, and I won't have to waste my time looking for you," is the retort.

"What does Avad want?"

"Shouldn't you just serve your king?" Janeva snarks back. Ersa narrows her eyes. "He has more questions about Brightmarket."

Ersa is escorted to the Queen Consort's former apartments, which Avad is still using as his own. They appear largely unaltered from when his step-mother resided in them, so far, although Ersa smiles when she sees several trunks of books and scrolls in the solar.

"You should keep guards in the anteroom," she says, passing through the solar and into the bedchamber.

"I'm already surrounded by them all day long," Avad says. He's undressing, a long process given all the useless ornamentation the Carja make their king wear. His crown and headdress are removed, as well as his cloak and the bands on his chest, and he's struggling with a knot on one of his sleeves.

"You cut your hair shorter," Ersa observes.

"A fortnight ago," the king says. Is there reproach in his voice? Ersa lingers in the doorway for a moment, but it reminds her too much of the old days, in this very palace, standing in doorways to keep herself distant.

They've been together, working and planning, Ersa acting on his behalf, every day since Avad took the throne. But they haven't been _together_.

Avad's expression softens. "Could you…" he holds up his arm, awkwardly, now apologetic. "I can't get the knot."

Ersa smiles. "How did you get dressed?" she teases, approaching the king from the doorway. He holds up his arm before her, exposing the back of his upper arm, the delicate, tiny knots holding the machine lattice on his arms in place.

"I have attendants now," he says. "They knock on the door and wait for me to let them in every morning. Like geese waiting to be fed."

"When have you ever fed a goose?" Ersa's fingernails are too short to get a good grip on the knots, but she has the advantage of sight and two hands to pick at them with, and Avad holds patiently still while she does.

"I haven't," he admits.

"Geese don't wait quietly for much," she says. The string loosens, and he shakes free of the lattice with clear relief. It's surprisingly heavy in Ersa's hands, despite the delicate appearance. Avad's new clothing isn't designed for comfort and ease of movement.

The room is dim and very quiet. The sun has set, but night has not yet truly fallen: the sky out the windows of the queen's bedroom is the blue of mountain stone, and Avad has lit only a single lantern.

They're too high and far from the rest of Meridian to make out the sounds of the city, the murmurs of guards and clangs of training Ersa can hear from her claimed room in the barracks.

It had been a month since she was last alone with Avad, and she is very aware of it, standing so closely before him. His chest, now bare, rises and falls in breath, clearly audible in the quiet.

He lowers his arm, placing his hand gently on her forearm. "Ersa," he says softly, looking at her.

"Is this a move?" she asks, her voice as low as his, intensely aware of her sweaty, dusty leather armor, his smooth and unscarred skin and the bruises on her own body, the scars and callouses, the way he is looking at her, leaning down and closer, slowly, _so_ slowly, smelling of some flowery soap and silks…

"I thought you wanted to discuss Brightmarket?" she murmurs, when he's just about to kiss her, finally, _finally_ , his hand searing at her skin — she forces her eyes to stay open, so she sees as he stops — the flash of rejection that crosses his eyes, the instant he starts to prepare a defense —

Regret crashes over her like a rockslide, his assumption and her joke. "Kidding," she says, reaching up and around his shoulders to pull him back, the lattice armband crashing noisily to the floor.

 

 

 

 

The Queen's bed is much too soft, and Ersa feels like she's drowning, sinking into the middle of the down, surrounded by Carja silk.

"So, Brightmarket," she says, after.

Avad laughs.

The bed is like a pit, trapping them at the bottom. She wraps her arms around him and presses herself to his back. She can feel his heart beating, the way his whole body seems to relax.

"If I could, I would be laying my brother to rest, not Jiran," he says softly. Kadaman lies in some mass grave, anonymous, with the bodies of Ersa's men and Ersa's people.

She presses her forehead against his spine. "I do love you, you know," she murmurs, the admission twisting in her as always.

He shifts and turns and they sink into the bottom of the mattress down. "I can't do all this alone," he says. That isn't true, but she smiles against his shoulder.

"Get a new bed if you want me to stay here," she says, closing her eyes, shifting to try and get comfortable. "Then at least you'll have _one_ guard when the assassins come for you."


	16. two. (i know that you will)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT WE'VE FINALLY REACHED PART TWO?? only took a year what up. this chapter is so shameless, i'm sorry. (not really tho)

 

> _i'll place a crown upon your curls_
> 
> _all hail the queen of the world!_

 

**two. (i know that you will)**

 

 

The worst part is, the moment Ersa steps over the bridge into Meridian, she feels stronger. Never mind that it is as part of the Sun-King's procession, never mind that she is clustered with other slaves and heavily guarded, never mind that she is only leaving Meridian for Sunfall, so the Sun-King can murder more innocents to insure his Queen a safe pregnancy.

She is moving, she is _outside_ , she feels healthier and more fit than she has in months after weeks of eating the prince's lunch every day. When the procession finally gets moving, at mid-morning, Ersa is feeling almost buoyant.

By noon, the feeling is somewhat faded. When the Sun-King travels, half of the court travels with him, and the procession stretches out over half a mile as it crawls towards Brightmarket. At the very front is the royal family, guarded by Kestrels. Then there are ministers, ladies in waiting, noble companions and advisors. Then come porters and more soldiers, pulling carts and carrying by hand all the clothing and furniture the Sun-King requires. Last come the servants and slaves chosen for the journey: some favorite cooks and attendants. And Ersa, water puller turned floor scrubber turned Prince Avad's pet.

She saw him once, briefly, before they'd left Meridian and the caravan had stretched out. His father and step-mother were hidden away in an elaborate palanquin with the youngest prince; Avad was standing to the side of it, talking to the crown prince Kadaman. He'd seen Ersa and smiled quickly at her, before turning his attention to the litter.

The journey to Brightmarket is not difficult, but it stretches on. Ersa and the other slaves had been roused before dawn, and she hasn't eaten all day. Skins of water are shared, but the afternoon heat is oppressive. The procession makes so much noise that no wildlife can be seen from the road, and any machines have been chased away by guards at the start of the column. After a while, lush leaves and bright skies start to blend together. By the time they do arrive in Brightmarket, in the late afternoon, she's tired and headachey and in no mood to appreciate the town, which is as beautiful as people say.

There's no time to rest. The servants are fed a ration of maize gruel and water while the boats are loaded, and Ersa regrets the meal as soon as they've pushed off from the docks. She's never been on a boat before. It feels awfully thin, and if it were to crack she's not sure she could swim to shore. The boat sways and creaks and rocks back and forth, and she's immediately violently sick. She spends the journey to the Blazon Arch hunched in a corner, given a wide berth by the guards and slaves she's journeying with.

Avad said he _enjoys_ this?

The Sun-King's boat is larger, better decorated, resembling nothing so much as a gigantic bed in its posts and silk hangings; she watches it resentfully as she clings to the side of her boat. How could _anyone_ enjoy feeling this sick? It's true what they say. Men are made of fire and iron, and not meant to mix with water. Ersa wants to die.

The party beds for the night in the Blazon garrison. Ersa's sickness fades when she's back on land, and while the important members of the convoy are escorted to lodgings higher up, she and the other slaves are herded into a barracks. The room has only two small windows and is hot and stuffy: Ersa pushes her way to the floor directly under one of them for the fresh air, ready to fight for the space if she must.

She must still look green, because no one challenges her for the good spot. They're fed and watered, and then locked in. Some of the men play dice, others talk. The moon has barely risen, but Ersa is exhausted. She stretches out on the floor and sleeps.

The next morning, before dawn, they're roused, allowed to wash at a pump, and herded outside to resume the journey to Sunfall. Ersa had woken up stiff and hungry and starting to wish she'd never left Meridian. There's a several hour delay between the slaves being organized and the Sun-King readying for departure, but at last they're back underway.

The climate north of the Arch is drastically different. The land is dry and hot and barren, and soldiers are posted in intervals along the kingsroad. They pass several recently fallen machines on the journey, explaining the postings. This is a wilder land. They pass the famous Tallneck of the Dunes at noon, which Ersa is in no mood to appreciate, and Sunfall finally comes into distance in the early evening.

She's dusty, sweaty, tired, sore, cranky, and hungry, but not so much that she misses the pomp arranged for the Sun-King's arrival. Carja line the streets, cheering and throwing flowers, real and silken, when the royal family passes. Ersa walks through them when she does, uncheered, minutes later. She's aware of the Sun-Ring.

It's all she thinks about, as they make their slow journey up to the palace. There it is to her right. There it is in front of her. Now the left. Now the right. There, there, there. They don't pass close enough that she can see inside, see more than the walls of it, but it's there. It's here. She's here. She's back.

The Palace at Sunfall is darker and more imposing than the Palace at Meridian. She's led to an unfamiliar slave's barracks with the two other women who have made this journey. Bedding has been laid for them on the floor. The slaves at Sunfall are thinner than Ersa, thinner than the women in Meridian who _haven't_ been eating a prince's lunches, and have brands on their arms and necks marking their castes.

She's never been grateful for her bronze shackle before.

Ersa wants food and she wants rest, but it's barely a minute before a guard arrives to inform her she's being summoned.

 

 

 

She's in no mood, but she follows Arnhen, taking note of the unfamiliar stairs and passageways. Despite looming over Sunfall, the palace is much smaller, building up and into the mountain rather than in tiers like Meridian's. The halls are busy with sevants and porters unpacking and running about, and Arnhen leads her up and through the palace to the prince's room.

Avad's room in Sunfall is much smaller than his apartments in Meridian, a single, bright room with open doorways to a balcony to let in whatever breeze the desert provides. The room is sparsely decorated, clearly not well lived in, furnished with only a writing desk, bench, and bed. There are three chests, as well. Ersa wonders how many men carried them from Meridian.

She lingers in the doorway after Arnhen sees her in and is dismissed. Avad looks like he's in the middle of changing: she hasn't seen much of the royal family today, but she doubts his knotted shirt and vest and uncovered hair are procession appropriate.

He smiles at her. It's something new — not the smile, the idiot is nearly always doing that — but the expression, something amused? He also looks well rested. And has probably eaten recently. Ersa holds her hands behind her back, her posture stiff. "How did you enjoy the journey?" the prince says. "Here, change into these."

"What?" Avad gestures to a bundle folded neatly on his bed. "What are you doing?" Ersa asks, to clarify, sort of: change clothing? She has no idea what he just asked of her, despite knowing the _words_.

"It's fine," he says, clearly not understanding. "They're my old clothes."

"I'd rather strip naked," Ersa snaps. "And I'd rather die before doing that," she adds. The prince opens his mouth and shuts it and looks embarrassed as she clarifies her position, and she's much too tired to pretend to be nice about it.

"No, ah," the prince seems to have lost his train of thought. He looks at the bundle, and steps away from the bed. Puts his fist to his mouth, knuckle over his lips. Thoughtful, restraining himself. "Sunfall is so heavily guarded that the palace is not. I'd thought we could… walk around the town."

"What?" Ersa says again, aware she's repeating herself, unable to summon the thoughts to say anything else. "I - I can leave?"

"We can walk around Sunfall," Avad clarifies, with subtle emphasis on the pronoun and location. "Sunfall is the seat of military strength in the Sundom, and there are always soldiers coming and going. But I know you must want to… not be here," he finishes, weakly, and actually almost shrugs at her.

Ersa's heart is pounding. She barely hears him. "And then I can go?"

"No," Avad says. She meets his eyes then. He sighs shortly and looks away from her. "My father knows you're here. If you vanished, he'd discover it and be… unhappy."

"How does he know I'm here?" Ersa is moving towards the prince, hardly aware of it, her heart pounding in her chest. She'd thought the Sun-King had forgotten her. She'd hoped. She'd been alone in the ring, but for the bodies: a dozen captives, her men Alin and Steel, dead, Alin's lying face down in the sand, Steel, who they'd always made fun of, his parents were smelters who'd hoped for a blacksmith and not a soldier, his head nearly severed — the five Carja guards, dead and dying, one of their sword's in Ersa's hand, the three Kestrels sent in after, when Ersa had proven she was still living, could handle mere guards in leather — when she had killed them, too, eight men in all, a bow with a few arrows, a few lucky shots, a spear still sticking from the neck of a Kestrel, a sword in her hand —

When she'd been there, the Sun-King had spoken in the roars and screams and taunts of the crowd, some throwing rocks, a shoe hitting her cheek; he'd silenced them and spoken, his voice another meaningless roar in her ears. Silence. Taunts turning to cheers. A huge man entering the ring — now she would be killed, now her luck would fail, now — she'd swung and he'd swatted her away like her blow was nothing as the crowd laughed. He'd struck her and she'd woken up in chains hours later, the Sun-King watching somewhere above, speaking, rewarding her with life in his service —

She's standing right before Avad now; she doesn't remember moving. He looks alarmed; hesitates, and places his hand carefully on her shoulder. His grip isn't strong; she doesn't fight it away. "I had to inform the steward I wanted you along," he says in a careful, gentle voice. "Kadaman then told our father. He had to; if I'm seen to be keeping secrets I… _we_ would be punished."

"So it's much better this way," Ersa says darkly. She feels dizzy with memories, her head aching.

The prince moves his hand from her shoulder to her upper arm, and she continues to allow it. "Yes," he says. "Father thinks it's… funny, that I have a woman teaching me swordsmanship. That I'm so weak. It's why he allows us our time together. Kadaman told him you were coming to Sunfall so that he could find amusement in that too. My new devotion to martial training."

She hadn't known the Sun-King knew about the training.

She hadn't known she was a joke.

That _Avad_ was a joke, that his father humiliating him was the price to pay for whatever he got from time with her. Ersa had never been able to stand her father when _he'd_ mocked her. The prince's price is small… but he'd not let on to it before.

"But you're not a bad swordsman," she says, unsure if she should thank him, unsure how to respond to this news. And he _isn't_. He's not a creative fighter, nor a motivated one, and has never been in a real battle. But even if Ersa always wins their practice fights, he's always been able to keep up.

"I know," Avad says wryly. "My brother has made me practice with him for years."

She looks up at him for a few moments, and then is suddenly, abruptly aware of his hand on her shoulder, how close they're standing, the way a bit of his hair is falling into his eyes, and… Ersa steps away, turns to the bed, her arms crossing defensively over her chest. Clutching at her upper arms. "Okay, so," she says. "We can go out. We can just leave."

Avad takes a second to reply from behind her. "For a few hours. There will be a ceremony for the shadow at midnight, and I must attend." Ersa looks at the bundle of clothing on the bed without reaching for it. Maybe she can leave. Maybe she can sneak out of the city. What does she care if the prince gets punished for it?

Why _does_ she care that he would?

The prince seems to take her silence for something else. "It's not dangerous. Kadaman has already left; he stopped by my room on the way to ask if I wanted to go with him."

"And you decided you'd rather go out with me?" Ersa asks sourly. She unfolds her arms and takes hold of the clothing: a long sleeved Carja jacket in yellow silk, wide-legged trousers in a dusky blue, a sash in purple. Avad is taller than her, but skinny, and she's not confident in the fit.

Avad takes a moment to answer her question. "Well… my brother is probably headed to a brothel, firstly."

She can't help it; she laughs, looks over her shoulder at him. "Not for you?" The prince is so buttoned up, she can't picture him at a brothel. Or even knowing what sex is. She wonders if he's a virgin — and turns back to the clothing, suddenly picturing…

"My brother and I have different tastes in that," the prince says, to her utter shock. Ersa turns back around, feeling herself almost laughing again: he's looking up at the ceiling, clearly embarrassed. "Kadaman prefers the company of other men," he clarifies, to the ceiling.

"And how do you know that? Have you gone to a brothel with him? How often do you sneak out?" He's so _embarrassed_. Ersa bites her lip, oddly delighted. He scrunches up his face just like Erend does when Erend is being teased, and it's so much better than… than other thoughts. About Sunfall and Sun-Kings.

"As I said, this palace isn't heavily guarded, so… this isn't the first time we've left," Avad says, avoiding the other questions.

Ersa laughs, pulling off her overshirt. The prince looks down from the ceiling in time and takes a big step away from her, turning his back. She snorts. Obviously she has on an undyed linen chemise underneath to cover her stomach and brests. It and her overshirt were meant to be tucked into a long narrow skirt, like the other servant women: Ersa had ripped up her skirt for bandages in her first week, and simply wore the overshirt with the leggings meant to be worn beneath the skirt.

She pulls the prince's clothing on over her smock and leggings. The shirt is too tight in the chest, cut at the bottom of her ribs, and the arms are too long, cuffs too loose at her wrists. It's uncomfortable, but it works: she's glad Avad chose a long sleeved jacket to cover the cuff on her left wrist. The pants are better, long and loose enough that they almost look like a skirt, and with a sash to hold them in place on her. Dressed, Ersa isn't sure she looks like a Carja prince, but she also no longer resembles a slave.

Mostly. Avad turned back around when he'd realized she wasn't actually stripping; he looks her over critically. "Well?" she asks, defensive under his gaze. "Do I look Carja?"

"Like an… odd Carja," he says, honestly enough that she almost smiles. He smiles back, and she looks away, fussing with the knot of her sash. His sash. She's leaving. She's dressed in Carja clothes and leaving the palace. The Sun-King knows about her, and she's leaving with his son. Maybe she can slip away. She's leaving the palace. Her mind is a jumble, her hunger and tiredness not forgotten but pulsing, driving her, punctuating her heartbeat. She isn't sure what she'll do. What they'll do. She's leaving the palace with Avad. Maybe she can slip away.

" _We're_ not going to a whorehouse, are we?" Avad coughs, half chokes, and she laughs, adrenaline starting to rush through her, her fear of the sun-ring transforming. Besides, he looks so surprised.

"No," he says, which she'd known by his reaction. He gestures towards the door; _after you_. "When my father arrives, there are celebrations, performers in the streets."

Chaos. Crowds. Ersa hesitates. "How do you know I'm not going to run for it?" she asks, challenging, hesitating. It wouldn't be hard. Run while his back is turned, blend in with the crowd, the cheering and screaming crowd, watching the sun-ring… hit him over the head, like she'd been. Run then.

"I don't," he says seriously.

He'll be punished if she does.

"I won't," she admits quietly, looking down at her — his — too-long sleeves.

"I know," he admits. She forces herself to look up at him, not sure how to take that — he looks warm, meets her eyes. "You're much too kind-hearted for that," he says, maybe teasing a little with his smile. Not the idiot she'd taken him to be. Ersa scowls, feels her face redden. The prince looks pleased. "Shall we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i spent a lot of time trying to decide on logistics and distance, how long the travel would take. in game you can do it in like five minutes; realistically it would take much longer than the 2~ days i went with (they're just under two hundred miles apart; assuming you're moving 20-30 mph/32-45km/hr, that's like… a week, lol) idk! maybe people in hzd world just walk really quick! or i didn't feel like making this into a three week journey!
> 
> or i need to stop writing about it before i change my mind about everything i have ever learned and known! if it bothers you as it's starting to bother me, assume that the walk to brightmarket took like two days, the crossing another, and then another five days of walking and SHITTY CAMPING FOR ERSA and nicer camping for avad before they finally roll up into sunfall. utah is BIG, yo.


	17. two. (for you have become)

**two. (for you have become)**

 

Ersa has been called many things in her life. You, girl, bitch, whoregirl, hardass, big sister, useless, ugly, pretty, heartless, daughter, friend, stubborn, mercenary, Freebooter, Oseram. Slave.

_Kind-hearted._

It's not the wrong word. Ersa tries to look out for people who need it, take care of things. She's friendly to children and polite to elders. Kind-hearted things. But Avad calls her that, and it rubs at her, under her skin and against her ribs.

She doesn't want a Sun-Prince to think her _kind-hearted_. Even if that prince is Avad. It's like he just exposed some weakness in her.

He's still standing at the doorway, still smiling, his eyebrows quirked in polite confusion. She's standing in his room, in Sunfall, in his borrowed clothing. "Lead the way," she mutters, her cheeks red, from the sun and the travel and whatever else.

They're leaving the palace. She could slip away, but she can't, because the prince called her kind-hearted. She doesn't want him punished because of her, doesn't want anyone muddied in her problems, and he knows it and says so and is taking her outside the palace.

Her head hurts again.

She's expecting Avad to lead them down some secret passage, through a hidden grate, but instead he leads them down several flights of stone steps, passing porters and attendants preparing the palace for his arrival. They leave the palace through a side door. It's guarded, but the Carja seem unconcerned by the prince's approach, by Ersa in borrowed clothing at his heels. "Thank you," Avad says, pressing something into one of the guard's hands, and then they're out of the palace, in a bustling courtyard, and then an alley, and then the streets.

The houses here are piled against the mountain, odd wings and jutting corners, every story vying for at least one window or airway despite all the competition. The street is barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, turning abruptly and often, but Avad leads them confidently. Ersa could turn away, slip away. She doesn't know where she is, but it wouldn't be hard.

But she won't. "Did you bribe that guard?" she asks.

"A Watcher lens," Avad says. He's hurrying a little, not as though they're being chased, but eagerly: he slows down and turns his gaze behind him every second or two, to look at Ersa in the narrow street. "For Kadaman as well; he gave it to me earlier. It wasn't really a _bribe_ , more… an incentive to keep quiet."

"That's the definition of a bribe," Ersa says.

"If I really tried to leave, they couldn't stop me," Avad clarifies. Ersa frowns: Avad is tall but skinny, and those guards had been armed and armored. Then she takes his meaning. They couldn't have laid hands on the Sun-King's _son_. "But now they won't tell their captain, and if the captain finds out anyway, it'll be an apology for the docked pay and punishment."

"Do you do this often?" she narrows her eyes at his back. He doesn't turn around this time.

"Father doesn't… wish for us to leave the palace."

They emerge from the alleyways onto a main avenue, which is crowded with Carja celebrants, musicians, performers, and singers spread through the crowd. The scent of food, already in the air, grows stronger, and Ersa is immediately ravenous. She spots a stand close by, but Avad heads in the opposite direction, and she has no shards. She grits her teeth, tries to ignore the smell, and follows him.

They turn a corner onto the main avenue to the palace, the wide one they'd travelled down only an hour or two ago. No one picked up the flowers from the royal procession; Ersa steps on petals and silk blooms. This street is even more crowded, food stands and makeshift stages for performers lining the avenue. They've emerged near a pair of flame-spitters, taking turns to spit fire over the crowd.

The crowd is Carja, but a mix of social classes. Ersa is no expert, but she sees men and women in silk and headdresses as well as others in linens, and still others who are so thin they must be poor or laborers. Some of the wealthier Carja are followed by plainer-dressed servants or slaves, but she doesn't see any slaves, branded or shackled, enjoying the street fair. Avad blends in without any effort on his part, but Ersa is conscious of herself: the ill-fitting clothing, the braid she's slept with for days, her very _self_ , which she's sure screams nothing so much as Outsider! and Oseram! She does get a few second glances, she looks out for men and weapons, but no one pays her or the prince any close attention.

Avad has slowed his pace: this is clearly his intended destination, and he seems prepared to walk around and take in the sights. She has been a few steps behind him, as if chained and bound to follow, and moves to match his pace. "Doesn't anyone recognize you?" she asks. The crowd and music is loud; she doesn't bother to lower her voice.

Avad smiles blandly. "It's sacrilegious to look directly upon those born of the Radiant Line," he says, using the somber voice he prefers when parroting Carja nonsense, not bothering to lower his voice either. He adds, almost cheerfully: "No one actually knows what I look like."

"I look at you, and the sun's never burnt me for it," Ersa retorts, pondering it. It's true, he doesn't look all that… prince-like. Not wearing what amounts to casual Carja clothing. But his face is handsome, so some Carja must… What did she just think?

"Are you sure? You're a bit red from the journey," Avad says. She barely hears his joke, lost in her train of thought.

"You're in a good mood," she says sourly, once she registers it.

"I haven't left the palace in over six months," Avad admits.

Same as her. It connects abruptly: he must have last left the palace when she'd arrived. They'd left Sunfall together. Her in chains, dragged on a board by other slaves, in and out of consciousness from her injuries; him in a litter, silk fluttering in the breeze…

The Sun-King doesn't let his sons out of his sight. The image binds together in her mind, although she can't put words to it. He'd told her it wasn't easy for him to leave the palace one of the first times they'd met. "Out of Watcher lenses?" she asks, unfairly, but something about him is annoying her, has been for a minute or two.

"Look," Avad says pointedly; politely, gesturing at a small crowd. "There's a declamation."

He points like a prince: not jabbing with one finger, but with a gentle wave of his hand, polite and indirect. She follows him to a man standing on a table, dressed in the blue silks of the wealthy, speaking in a powerful voice to the assembled crowd.

 

 

> "And so the sun-bright maiden said to him,
> 
> 'Oh! How I wish we could be wed, however,
> 
> my father, the great Herthas, the mightiest
> 
> of the all warriors bound to serve the false
> 
> Usurping King, your own brother, would of course
> 
> forbid it.' As she spoke, she wept bitter tears.
> 
>  
> 
> "'My love,' said bright Hivas, the blessed of
> 
> the sun, 'Do not fret. My brother is false
> 
> and has grown mad; yet he is a man still.
> 
> And should I speak to him, as his brother,
> 
> surely he will see the light of the Sun,
> 
> and allow us to wed.' So said the bright,
> 
> glowing Hivas."

 

The poet is in the middle of some longer epic, some kind of romance; it flies over Ersa's head. Oseram have dirty songs and epic stories, but the fussy style of Carja poetry is immediately boring. Avad listens politely, but even he appears to lose interest quickly. He catches her looking around the crowd, bored, and leans towards her. "My grandfather," he murmurs into her ear.

Now she connects the name Hivas to the former Sun-King. It strikes her as funny. "You don't like romances?"

They move on.

"I remember him as… terse," Avad says a minute past the poet. He doesn't appear to have any new direction in mind, walking slowly; Ersa is only half listening, her eyes darting from person to person, building to building. Mapping Sunfall. Scanning faces. _How can you win a fight if you don't know what you're facing?_ , some old words of wisdom, but her gaze keeps landing on food. Meat and onions on a skewer in one man's hands. A honeycake in a child's. Two women sharing dried fruit. A man tossing nuts into his mouth.

"What?" she asks, when she realizes the prince is speaking.

"My grandfather," he says, shooting her a sideways look. She thinks she might have annoyed him, but her stomach is caving in on itself. "He passed when I was six or seven."

They pass jugglers with a small crowd, another poet telling ribald stories, surrounded by all men, all laughing. A stand manned by a couple roasting two turkeys on a spit. Ersa struggles to focus.

"I never met my grandfather," she says, distracted. "He died before I was born." Easy. Conversational. She smells garlic roasting.

"I'm sorry."

"He was probably a piece of work, he was my father's-father," Ersa shrugs, her eyes on a passing woman and her passing maizebread. There are dozens of Carja around her, but all she can see is the food. "Sorry about your gradfather," she remembers to add, politely. She doesn't mean it. One Sun-King is like another, although she doesn't remember hearing about Sun-King Hivas raiding her tribe, so maybe it is something to be sorry for.

"I was born here in Sunfall, you know," Avad says. She's piqued enough to look over at him, instead of the food around her: she gets the inkling the prince is leading up to something.

"You went to Meridian when… your grandfather died?" Ersa guesses, not quite wanting to say the words _Jiran_ and _king_ aloud.

He nods. "Yes; my father was governor here until then. I was excited to move to Meridian, and so was my brother. He wanted to join the Hunter's Lodge, and for a time I imagined I'd join him."

Ersa snorts, as quiet as she can. She's guessing that dream didn't last long; any love of swordplay Avad might have had as a child has long since been outgrown.

They've reached the end of the avenue, the crowds spilling into a plaza that curves up towards the palace's main gate. She's lost her sense of where they are; sees the way the city drops into empty space ahead of them.

The Sun Ring.

The Sun Ring. There are raised seats curving around it, the walls too high and drop too far to see the bottom, the sand that covers and absorbs the blood. The Sun Ring. It stutters in her head, repeats itself, echoing, the same thought over and over, _I died here no I didn't die I survived but I'm a captive here, it's the Sun Ring_ , the way a machine, if you watch it long enough, will march in loops or lines along a hidden track.

Avad's hands are on her shoulders; he is facing her. "Ersa," he says again, concerned, worried: her ears are ringing, loudly, the people around them unintelligible. She looks up. Meets his eyes. Warm wood, the dry smooth beams of her attic storeroom bedroom, warm and dark. Long eyelashes.

Ersa pushes free and past him to approach the lip of the arena.

There is a railing, so Carja in the plaza can also look down on the murders. There are men deep down, far below, in the Sun-Ring. Her heart stops, she hears screams and tastes blood — no. No, she sees, they are armored. She is dizzy, clutching the stone, gripping the edges. Two Carja in shiny armor, too small to clearly see, are taunting a machine. Strider — no, Broadhead. They take turns, circling it, dodging and feinting, showing off their agility and bravo, the other standing to the side. There are only a few scattered Carja in the stands, barely watching. No blood, no cheering. There, below: two Carja women, heads together, talking instead of watching the sand.

Where had she been standing? Where had her men, the Nora woman, all fallen? It's round and empty and she can't tell, they're too far up. She wants to go down into the Sun-Ring, find the places and the bodies. She imagines vaulting over the railing, into the stands.

"Ersa," Avad says again. His hand hovers over, closes on her shoulder. There: there is the dais where the Sun-King had sat. She hadn't been able to see it clearly, in the ring. There is the dais where Avad had sat and almost seen her killed, and now she's standing next to him and his hand is on her shoulder.

She doesn't push him away, but she does feel suddenly, abruptly heavy, tired and ground and sore. There's nothing she wants to say, can say, can _think_ , but the prince doesn't speak either, so she isn't forced to even decide if she'll hit him or run for him, and she doesn't move and neither does he.

After some time, minutes or seconds, he moves his hand from her shoulder. Lets it hover. Trying to decide. He covers her hand with his, his skin soft and dry and warm. It stirs something in her.

"You promised you'd help me get home," she says. She's dully surprised her voice isn't shaking or cracked.

"I did," he says. "I do still."

"How?" she asks. "What's the plan?"

She needs to know. She needs it, needs a plan, details, a promise, more than words. Actions, not feelings. Here, look here, at the place she bled and fought and almost died, the place where her kin and tribe bled and did die. No more vague words, vague hopes she can't put her weight on. She needs to _know_.

The prince is silent for a moment. He removes his hand from hers. "Carja women do not travel without escort, and I can't send anyone with you or leave with you myself."

It's only much later that she remembers this, wonders why that idea had even crossed his mind.

"Some Carja nobles, women, do hunt for sport. It's… frowned upon, but in certain families…" he trails off, waves his hand vaguely. _The politics don't matter._ "I thought the simplest thing to do would be to find you the proper armor. It's too dangerous to travel alone in the wilds, and all the roads are heavily patrolled and trafficked by soldiers and slavers. Blazon armor is only worn by the nobility. You'd be noticeable, but not suspiciously so."

It's… simple. But complicated plans run the highest risk of disaster, any tinker knows as much. It's also a plan, and proof he's tried to make one. "And getting out of Meridian?"

"Comparatively easy," Avad says. "You'll have one of the three days of the Solstice free from work; all the palace slaves and servants do. You'll dress as you are now and walk out of Meridian." His expression grows serious. "A few slaves always attempt escape during these festivals," he adds. "The roads will be heavily patrolled. I can't think of a way to get your cuff removed without attracting attention, so you'll have to be cautious."

She's silent, thinking about it all. There are weaknesses, there are assurances she'd like. But she's always imagined needing to strike out alone at night. Striking out in Carja noble armor… it's a good shield.

"The only difficulty so far is that the armor isn't easy to come by without raising questions," Avad says. He sounds almost dry, not too concerned, but her shoulders stiffen. "Kadaman says I should just pretend it's for me, but don't worry; I have friends who can't refuse a favor."

"I didn't think you had any friends but me," Ersa says, half under her breath, they're always together lately, and now he's actually … she closes her eyes, still sees the Sun-Ring. Wants to turn away, doesn't want to turn her back to it. The ringing in her head is fading, but she feels sweat under her arms and on her back, cold and clammy.

Avad is looking sharply at her. He coughs and looks away, towards the ring.

"It's not a bad plan," she admits. She can't think of one simpler, immediately better. "Will you be punished for it?"

Avad hesitates. "If my father decides I helped you escape, yes," he says. "But considering your record of service, I don't believe anyone would be shocked you made another attempt at freedom."

"What record?" she asks warily.

"You attacked your fellow servants and tried to escape three times in your first week," the prince says, in his prim voice.

She flushes. She hadn't forgotten, but she'd assumed he didn't know. "I've apologized for that. To them."

He smiles, ducking his chin down. "My father may just find it amusing when you go. He thinks of you as my pet, a joke; if you… 'abandon' me, as it were, he'd likely find it funny."

She'd also, bitterly, thought of herself as his pet. She doesn't like having that in common with the king. "Your father doesn't like you much," she says.

Ersa doesn't ask the prince personal questions, tries to maintain a detachment, show a lack of interest. She doesn't care about that right now. It's been in the back of her mind, this idea, and now it's something to think about, something _else_ , easier. Below them, the Carja have killed the Broadhorn and left, leaving it sparking in the darkening arena.

"No," Avad says carefully, after a long pause. "He does not."

"I'm sorry," she says. "I sort of guessed."

He leans against the rail, his forearms supporting his weight. "When my father was the age I am now, he was governor of Sunfall, twice married, twice a father. He doesn't trust my brother or myself, and so keeps us under his thumbs while he waits to see what sort of man Itamen becomes."

It's a shocking admission, and one that must be treasonous in some way. But it's also not shocking at all. Avad, alone in his rooms day after day. Guards outside his doors. To keep him safe, or keep him in sight?

"But your brother — he's still 'Crown Prince Kadaman,'" Ersa says. The slaves, all whispering. Waiting for him to be king instead of his mad father.

"The oldest son doesn't always inherit. My grandfather was passed over for his younger brother at first." Avad frowns at the Sun-Ring. "He hasn't formally disavowed us, but he's also not let Kadaman learn how to rule, to marry or have heirs. Or myself," he adds.

"Do you… want to marry?" She's not sure how to ask.

Avad actually shrugs. "It hasn't come up in my case. Kadaman would rather not marry a woman at all, so he's in no hurry, although I suppose he could produce a son and then carry on with whoever he wanted after that. As it is, we're … trapped. 'Stuck' may be the better word. I might lose favor with my father by spending my time with you, but I never had much to lose."

It's that feeling again, that guilty, twisty feeling of something nearly like pity. She doesn't want him pained because of her. Much of this has nothing to do with her, but she doesn't want her, her existence, to add to it, to make it worse. She wants to _help_ , immediately, _kind-hearted_ echoing bitterly, the memory of blood in her mouth, but it feels like something owed, something in debt. She won't be anyone's burden, anyone's pain.

"My father hates me, too," she says instead. He's frowning at the Sun-Ring, turns his face to look at her. It's nearly dark now, lanterns glowing, his face and hers in shadow. She laughs under her breath, looking down at the stone railing. "It's nothing personal. He hates everyone about equal. I was terrified for years; he throws things sometimes but doesn't hit, but he'd follow you, screaming, calling you anything that came into his mind. Drove all my cousins and kin out of the house, so it was just the three of us after my mother died, and this was a _clan_ house, a big one. Four floors and ten rooms." No wealth or status in that big house, even though her clan owned land to go with it; her father had seen to that before Ersa was even born. He'd married late. Too late. Now he was seventy and pickled, still angry but dying slowly. He might have died in the past half year, but she doubts it. He's too spiteful to go quick.

Whenever she sees him in her mind, she's small, her hair in plaits, Erend chubby and heavy in her arms, and he's after them both. _Whoregirl, just like your whoremother, put that whimpering pissstain down and clean this mess_. Erend clinging to her blouse, her struggling to keep him from slipping out of her arms.

"When I was fourteen, he decided it was time I got married," she says with a bitter laugh.

"Do Oseram marry so young?" Avad interrupts, concerned.

"No. He probably didn't even mean it, he was drunk and said he wanted to get rid of me, I'd just gotten the nerve up to talk back to him around then." She scratches at the stone with her nail. "But it hit me then that I _would_ get married, if not right then in a year or two, or I'd refuse and I'd be stuck serving my father and then Erend the rest of my life. I didn't know which was worse." Serving a husband, working his trade, bearing his children, living with his family. Living in her storeroom, caring for her father. Erend wouldn't be bad, Erend would treat her as a human, but he was still her little brother, her baby brother, and she didn't want that. Didn't want her name tied to his house, helping clean up after his kids with his wife. She loved Erend, but she didn't want that. Never would.

Her nail chips against the stone. "So that night I cut off my braids, shaved my head, marched back downstairs and told my father I was marrying a blade and didn't belong to anyone but myself." She snorts. "It was all very dramatic. I left home, didn't come back for almost a year, and probably only have pity to thank for our village's militia even accepting me as a Freebooter. I haven't grown at all since I was twelve, I was even scrawnier back then."

She picks at her chipped nail, pulling at the edge until it comes off, tearing at her skin.

Avad laughs under his breath. "You're not scrawny."

"You should see my damn brother." But Ersa smiles, a little. By Carja standards she's about average, but she's on the shorter side for an Oseram woman, and compared to the men she serves with, a twig of nothing. She used to get worked up about it.

"I didn't know you had one," Avad says.

"Erend." It feels weird, frightening somehow, saying his name aloud to Avad. Like two things mixing that shouldn't. She tries to ignore it. Avad just told her treason; she can talk about her brother. "My idiot baby brother. He ended up running off, too. We're in the same unit. Were." The tense throws her off. Their unit is dead. He thinks her dead and buried.

Ersa throws herself away from the railing, turning back towards the square, picking at the rough edges of her nail.

Avad follows. "You and he are close?"

"Yes. I love him more than anything," Ersa says firmly. Trying to ignore, as always, the memory of leaving. Leaving him. Coming back, pride swallowed, and Erend still mostly a child, alone in that house, already had his first drink. It's her fault. Hers. Anything he could possibly suffer. She never should have left him.

She stops walking, just stands there in the square. Nowhere to go. Less people around now, but men are setting up lanterns and machine-spark lights. Avad said something about a ceremony at midnight. It's full dark now.

She wants to go home. Wants to smell the mud and sweat and cold misty rain, peat fires, old wood, her musty old cot. See Erend again, her baby brother, now a man grown twice her size. See him and tell him she's okay, she survived, they can go on like always, wandering around, selling their steel to whoever's job sounds interesting. No more guarding the border from Carja. No more sacrifices.

She wants, she wants, she wants, and her eyes are wet in the middle of some damn Carja square with blood and sand behind her.

She won't cry. She will not cry. She will never, ever cry here, wearing Carja clothes in a Carja square in a Carja city. Her eyes are wet and her thumb is bloody.

"Let's go back," Avad says, He stoops to the ground, picks something up, and reaches for her hand. She doesn't want to go, doesn't want to be lead like a child, but can't move. It's just too much. Just right now. She wants to go home, not _back_ , back to the palace, back to waiting. He presses something against her thumb.

A silk flower, drifted here from the procession. Yellow petals, folded and dirtied and stepped on, to absorb that spot of blood. Yellow is her favorite color, her clan's color. It's so appropriate it makes her smile, half a grimace.

"Let's head back," he says again. She swipes her hand over her eyes. It doesn't count. "I'm sure," he adds, his pious voice, "you're hungry."

"Every day of my life," she says, seeing the humor, and lets the Sun-Prince lead her back to his father's palace.


	18. vi. (i've changed since then)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol these chapters are getting longer and longer. also vanasha is IMPOSSIBLE TO WRITE

**vi. (i've changed since then)**

 

 

Ersa watches the sun rise from Sun-King Jiran's bedchamber. The Mad King's apartments have been stripped bare and left empty, the new king preferring his step-mother's abandoned apartments, but the former king's bedchamber had been surrounded by open doorways and windows on three sides, and the resulting views are… well, amazing. In the morning light, Meridian glows pink and orange, metal glinting in the first rays of the sun, banners fluttering in the weak breeze. Clouds are moving in from the south, filling the spaces between the mesas with shadow: rain clouds, with luck. It's been dry these past few weeks.

Tomorrow at dawn, the Mad King will be enshrined in his tomb. Tonight, the priests will begin a final vigil, praying for his soul in the darkness of night. Then his bones, cleaned and prepared, will be carried through the streets of Meridian and laid to rest in the morning's light. So it's been explained to Ersa. She's still angry about it. Jiran doesn't deserve a state burial, any burial, let alone the trappings of the beliefs he'd personally warped. She and Avad have argued about it, but he's held firm in his position. _I must continue his line, not usurp it_ , he'd said, pointedly. They're already calling him the usurper and false king in taverns. Ersa has her own ways she'd like to deal with the rumors, but…

She scoffs as she raises her cup to her mouth. She always vowed she'd live for herself and take orders from no man. Now look at her. Sworn to a damned _king_.

If only she could think of some way to change his mind…

She hears the footsteps before the king speaks. "I had wondered how you were leaving in the mornings without unlocking the door," Avad says from behind her.

Ersa snorts. There's a passage between the queen's chamber and the king's, to allow discreet visits between the two despite the apartments being on different floors. So while Avad locks the door from the guard room to his solar every night, all she has to do is use that passage and leave through the bare rooms of the former king. "It's a security risk, by the way," she says.

"The palace itself is guarded."

"You've already had four credible assassination threats," she reminds him. That Avad knows about. Only one of the four plots had turned out to be worth any steel, but Marad looks into all of them. The fifth Janeva had stumbled into, and for the time being, he and Ersa had agreed to keep it quiet.

"And your Vanguard have protected me from each one."

" _Your_ Vanguard," she says. She thinks of Klint, who is emerging as the main voice of dissent among her men. Another thing she's keeping to herself for the time being, for a different reason. Avad doesn't need to know she can't handle her own men. And she _can_ handle them. She will.

She turns around to take a look at him. Ersa almost always wakes before he does, just as she's nearly always asleep before he is those nights they spend together. So she's been up and letting her cup steep for near an hour, full dressed in yesterday's clothes and armor. He's still wearing bedclothes, undyed linen trousers and shirt, dressed enough until the moment he lets his attendants in to help him dress for court.

"My Vanguard," he agrees. He joins her in looking out over the city. Ersa wonders what he thinks when he sees it. The beauty? All the things that need change and repair? Yes, probably. It's one of the things she…

She takes another sip, and then hands the cup to him. "Here, drink this."

Avad obeys, raising the wooden cup to his lips. She enjoys the immediate wince of disgust, the pained swallow, the horrified look he gives the drink, which is bitter and acrid and sour all at once. "Is this your security risk?" he asks.

" _This_ is what's keeping me from bearing your bastards," she says. Herbs, machine oil — the Carja swear on Snapmaw, but back home the women had always talked of Longlegs, who unlike true birds never laid eggs — dried goosefruit, and orange peel, for taste. Mixed with fresh water and left to steep for an hour, the resulting tea would prevent a man's seed from taking hold. In more concentrated form, Ersa's heard it can even end an unwanted pregnancy. It sometimes causes her blood to arrive heavy and painful, but it works.

It's also disgusting.

Avad gives her, and then the cup, and then her again a look. "So shouldn't you be the one drinking it?"

"You're the reason I'm forced to," she says, crossing her arms, leaning against one of the pillars holding the domed ceiling of the Sun-King's bedchamber up.

He thinks it over, and takes another sip, wincing as he does.

She smiles. Between the two of them, they drain the cup in silence, taking sips in turn and looking out over Meridian. She likes that about Avad. It doesn't feel … strange, for him to be quiet, for her to also be. Ersa takes the final sip, tipping the last, awful dregs into her mouth.

"I need you to come see me later," Avad says.

"When? I have work to do this morning."

"With Janeva?" Ersa must make a face; the king looks disappointed. "My personal guard and the captain of my Vanguard keep disappearing together. It's hard _not_ to notice. I only haven't asked because I trust it's important."

"It is," Ersa admits. There's a warning in his voice she doesn't like. It's Avad the king, not Avad the man. If he asked, she'd be bound to tell him.

"This afternoon," Avad says. "Mid afternoon. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Now who's keeping secrets?" Ersa mutters. He smiles at her, the man and not the king. She huffs a sigh and smiles back and allows him to kiss her, pulling at his lip with her teeth when they part. He's looking starry eyed at her, and she smiles. Wants to kiss him again; touches his heart over his shirt. Pulls herself away.

"This afternoon," she repeats, acknowledgement and agreement, and she's still smiling but they're king and captain again.

When she and Janeva are done, Ersa decides to go straight to the solarium, the outdoor space Avad has taken to using for business instead of the grander throne room inside. Janeva, still on duty, walks with her until the gate, where he takes a position at the head of the unmoving line of petitioning nobles.

Both of them get dirty looks as they pass to the front of the line: Ersa for being a woman and Oseram, and Janeva for being… well, Janeva. She's not sure who would be judged worse by the Carja. She's not about to ask Janeva and have a fight over it, and the whole thing makes her feel itchy and defensive. Meridian is still not entirely comfortable with their new king and his foreign army, the people he surrounds himself with, and she's sure all the nobles and merchants she walks by wish she'd go home with the rest of the Oseram, now that the battle is over.

Entering the solarium, it's clear the line of petitioners isn't moving because Avad is having lunch. Now fully dressed, he sits properly at one of the low couches, a small plate with a sampling of the lunch spread balanced on his knee. Marad is sitting on the adjacent couch; a gorgeous woman is lounging on the other. One of the guards butts his spear against the ground to announce Ersa's arrival; Avad looks up and the woman looks over. Marad smiles: he probably sensed her presence the moment she crossed the bridge.

"Ersa! You're early," Avad says, standing politely. "Come and sit down."

She does, sitting beside Marad as the king settles back down. The days where she needed to eat all the prince's food are long behind her, but she still helps herself to a piece of soft white bread, the sort made from imported southern grain, and a few pieces of fruit. And some roasted meat, skewered with onions. "Who are you?" she asks the beautiful woman, who is lounging, her dark, smooth skin on open display where her skirts part and blouse rides up over her muscled belly.

Ersa isn't one to dislike other women just because they're beautiful, more beautiful than she is: if she were she'd be at it all day. But Avad had been laughing at something she'd said when Ersa had turned the corner, and she doesn't care for that.

"You don't remember me? I'm offended, my dear," the woman says, sitting up gracefully. Ersa narrows her eyes, drawing a complete blank.

"Ersa, this is Vanasha," Avad says. "She's the woman I wanted you to meet."

"We _have_ met," Vanasha clarifies.

"I'd remember you if we had," Ersa says, although her frown deepens. The name is familiar, although she can't place it.

Vanasha smiles coyly. "I know you were still hurt from the Sun Ring, but surely you remember me wiping the blood from your brow? Now I'm not just offended but hurt."

Now it clicks. "Vanasha?" There had been a woman in the slave barracks named Vanasha, tall and dark, who had given her advice in Ersa's first days, the angry days when she was only wanted to fight and kill her way out. Vanasha had reminded her what she needed, told her — told her about the court, to avoid the King's notice, the princes were better, that Avad was…

"You told me he was clever!" Ersa adds, elated and confused at remembering, pointing roughly behind her in Avad's direction.

"I hope I wasn't _entirely_ wrong," Vanasha says, raising her perfect eyebrows.

"Obviously I didn't believe you." Avad clears his throat loudly behind her. "You're a slave. You were a slave. You got sold a couple of weeks after I arrived," Ersa adds, remembering in chunks.

"Not quite," Vanasha says with a smile.

Marad clears his throat politely. "Vanasha is what you could call my protege," the man says gently, looking and sounding as always like a kind uncle, but Ersa doesn't miss the subtext. She looks behind her, at Avad, who gives her a look of confirmation. "She was never just a slave. Just like yourself, of course," he adds kindly.

"I was only there a month in all," Vanasha explains. "Just long enough to provide a record before moving on. That we met was just good luck."

"And until now," Avad says, "she's been in Sunfall. She'll be going back shortly." Ersa is still examining Vanasha, who was not so well dressed or made up a year ago. Had she not been looking so closely, she wouldn't have seen the look that crossed the woman's face. She hadn't expected Avad to tell Ersa that.

"So what brings you to Meridian now?" Ersa asks, her wariness faded. Although that look…

"I wanted to see our new king, of course! Rather handsome in all that finery, isn't he?"

"If you like useless bits of metal," Ersa says. Then realizes it might hurt Avad's feelings, but there's nothing she can do about it now. She doesn't think she'll ever like seeing him in a crown.

"There are certain tasks for which Vanasha is well suited," Avad says, his voice even and free of emotion. It's also vague; annoyingly so, since she's sure the others all know exactly what is being talked about.

"For example?"

"Ersa, pet, would you be willing to accompany me to the Temple of the Sun?" Vanasha asks. "When you've finished eating, of course. Your armor won't be necessary."

Ersa takes a bite of the meat skewer. Vanasha's expression is smiling, friendly, unpenetrable . She doesn't even bother trying to read Marad; the man may as well be a mirror. Avad she has an okay read on by now, but when she gives him a beseeching look, he just looks embarrassed and slightly away. So he doesn't want to tell her, either. Fine.

She wolfs down the skewer and abandons the rest. "Fine. Let's go." She's not wearing full armor, not in a day she's not leaving the upper city; Ersa unbuckles the leather apron, her arm guards, leaves it unceremoniously on a side table. She keeps the long knife at her side. Then she grabs her bread from her plate. "Is this good enough?" She doesn't like being out of the loop.

"Perfect," Vanasha says, herself in a long silk skirt and blouse and more jewelry than Ersa owns.

"Ersa," Avad says gravely, still seated, picking up some of her frustration, "Thank you for your assistance."

"I'm yours to command," she says, stuffing the bread into her mouth.

In the city, Vanasha strikes a slow pace, wrapping her arm in Ersa's, two women on a leisurely noontime stroll. "What exactly are we doing?" Ersa asks.

"Why, we're enjoying the sights of Meridian," Vanasha replies. Ersa has the distinct sense she won't get any answers from the woman that she isn't willing to give. Vanasha is perfumed, spicy and sweet smelling, tall and slender.

She can't help it. "How long have you known Avad?"

"A few years," Vanasha says vaguely. "Marad introduced us when our new king was planting his very first seeds of sedition. I don't know him _nearly_ as well as you, I'm sure."

"Planning a rebellion brings people together," Ersa says, already sick of the rumors and implications, especially because they're completely true and even denying them is a lie.

"Not everyone," Vanasha teases. "What's that necklace you hide under your blouse?"

Ersa's whole mind stutters in embarrassment and anger and _oh no, this can't_ — "Nothing," she says unconvincingly. It had come untucked from her blouse when she'd taken off her armor, for just a second. She hadn't thought about it. But what can she say? Why would Vanasha even care if she has on a _necklace_ , unless Vanasha already knows and is teasing her? _Marad's protege indeed_. She grits her jaw. At least she doesn't have to lie. She pulls it out from her shirt: a small charm the size of her thumbnail, on a long enough cord that it lies between her breasts, out of sight no matter her clothing. Long enough it's easy for Vanasha to reach over and inspect it as they walk.

"You don't strike me as a worshipper of the Sun," Vanasha teases, handing it back.

Ersa tucks it away. "I'm not. He gave it to me for luck." And then she kept wearing it. And still does, most days. She doesn't worship the stupid sun, Avad isn't the sun made man, but his stupid goodbye present… it means something to her. His care means something to her. Is that really so wrong?

"I'm sure," Vanasha says, sounding terribly amused.

"Why are we going to the Temple of the Sun?" Ersa asks again, defensive. The streets are always quiet this time of day, even with a state funeral to prepare for. The morning's clouds had never approached, and the streets are hot and dusty as they approach the temple.

"You're going to go inside and ask to speak to a priest. Because you're Oseram, and a woman no less, they will not want you there. You will have to put up a fuss, which I trust you don't object to?"

"And you?" Ersa asks leadingly.

"Will meet you back in the palace when you're done." So, Ersa is a distraction. Vanasha smiles at her, a bit more sincerely than before. "Our new king trusts you," she says.

"Trusts I'll do what he wants without asking too many questions," Ersa mutters.

"Isn't that what trust is?" Vanasha asks innocently. Ersa supposes she's right: if Avad wants her to do this and doesn't want her to know why, he must have a reason. But she'll decide for herself if it ends up being a good reason or not.

"Any advice on what kind of fuss I need to raise?" she asks, not enjoying being blatantly used like this, but resigned to being a Carja tool.

"Don't attack anyone," Vanasha says. "Stay as long as you can. Draw as much attention as you can. Second door from the left, across from the Spire."

"Thanks," Ersa says. "I'll see what I can do."

They part ways before the temple, Vanasha melting into the ever-present crowd of worshippers waiting to be blessed by the priests at noon. Ersa is very tempted to linger, see where she goes… but she pushes through the crowd instead, up the steps to the main dais where the eternal flame of the sun burns. She's never been any further in the temple than here and the courtyard where the priests sing and Avad was crowned; she goes into the door Vanasha had instructed.

No one stops her, or prevents her from walking through a short hall and up a flight of stone steps. It opens into a chamber lined with desks and scrolls — a library, or the religious version of one. Now she is noticed.

"Soldiers are forbidden from the sanctuary!" All Sun-Priests look identical to her, with their long robes and hoods, but two rush over from their tables. "This is a holy place! A place of peace!"

"I'm not armed or armored," Ersa says, spreading out her arms and now understanding the earlier request. She hopes no one points out the long knife.

"And yet you must leave! Women are forbidden! Foreigners are forbidden!" the other one says, his voice shrill in his displeasure. Three strikes against her. No wonder Vanasha thought she'd rile the priests.

"I'm here on behalf of Avad!" Ersa says, to shut them up; she doesn't have any plan or thing to be here on behalf _of_ , but it doesn't matter.

"You dare to speak the Sun-King's name?" the taller of the two demands, raising himself up. _Fire and spit._ So much for shutting them up. She's not at all scared of them, these hooded loudmouths, but the anger flares in her.

"What name, _Avad_?"

"You profane this holy place with your very breath," the shorter priest says. Marad had sworn the remaining Sun-Priests were loyal to Avad, or at least not loyal to Jiran's memory, but Ersa thinks they'd all be better off with them gone to Sunfall with the other rebels. Insufferable asses.

"So did Jiran, and you're still treating him with respect," she snaps.

One of the priests actually gasps. She shifts her stance, uncrossing her arms when she realizes she has them tight over her chest. "That's why I'm here, come to think of it!"

He doesn't deserve the respect. He doesn't deserve Avad's sadness, his mourning, the reverence and memory he gives his father, even if he _had_ been Avad's father. Jiran deserves a hole in the ground, to be forgotten, erased from Avad's memory. She doesn't like seeing him sad, preparing the funeral, speaking of better childhood memories when they're alone together at night — when Jiran was strict but fair, could still be pleased, even by his bookish second son — Ersa doesn't want to hear it. Doesn't want him to feel it. She'd pull the memories loose from him if she could, like the Machinist who created the world, removing a bolt from the mechanism.

She can't say that — she realizes as she _is_ saying it. She can tell Avad that all she wants when they're together, but he doesn't listen then and won't want her to say it now. To sow divide. She feels like she's just jumped, in midair, calculating a landing. "Why has there been no funeral for Prince Kadaman?"

 _If I could, I would be laying my brother to rest, not Jiran._ She knows as soon as she says it it was the right thing to say, even if she can't see the priest's faces and reactions. "He was Jiran's first-born son, wasn't he? Shouldn't he be laid to rest in the tombs with the other members of the royal family?"

The priests glance at one another. "He was removed from the royal line upon the placement of his sentence," the taller says.

"So was Avad when he left. Are you saying he's illegitimate too?" Ersa demands.

"He… has been crowned," the taller says.

"Dharvas!" the gasping one says. He raises himself up and clasps his hands before him, addressing Ersa. "Sun-King Avad was never truly removed from the Radiant Line; else he could never have been accepted by the Sun upon his coronation."

She narrows her eyes. "So Jiran was wrong when he disinherited him?"

"Well… no," the priest says. "That is… at that moment, he was entirely correct, however… _now_ , it is clear that the Sun-King Avad _is_ the chosen of the Sun."

"His highness may be king now," Dharvas says, "but Sun King Jiran's word still stands."

Ersa notices the other priest looking from Dharvas to her. Huh. "Well, Avad's word is the one we're talking about now," she says, hands on her hips. "And he cares about the fate of his brother as much as his father." More than, she hopes.

"That may not be much at all," Dharvas says. "You would do well to remove yourself from matters that are not your concern, Oseram."

"The king's concerns _are_ my concerns, Carja," Ersa retorts, lifting her chin to try and match his gaze, where his gaze would be under his hood. Her hands on her hips.

"Some sort of memorial could be arranged," the other Sun-Priest says, doing that glance between the two of them again. She's almost starting to warm to him.

"And his remains?"

"He may be buried in effigy, as has been precedented," the priest ventures.

"This is a foolish indulgence," says Dharvas.

"I speak for the Sun-King," Ersa snaps.

"You are a foreigner! A woman!"

"Try me!" she snaps. "Just see whose side Avad takes!"

"I have no doubts the new _king_ would side with _you_ ," Dharvas says.

"Perhaps we may continue this discussion… in a place we may freely speak with you," the other priest says, which only angers her more, even if Ersa recognizes it as clumsy peacekeeping.

"I'll speak to you all, right here and right now," she says. "On the authority of the _Sun King_. You, go get whoever is in charge around here," she says, picking the melodramatic one. "You, Dharvas, tell me why exactly you stayed here instead of running off to Sunfall with your friends?"

"My loyalty is to the Sun, not General Helis or a shadow cult," Dharvas says.

The other priest hesitates, backs off.

"Wait," Ersa says. "What's your name?"

"Irid," he says.

She nods at him. "Nice to meet you, Irid. You're loyal to _Avad_ , or to nothing at all," she says, mostly to Dharvas.

"To the king _and_ the Sun," Irid says piously, "for they are one and the same."

"Or that," she says, her eyes still narrowed at Dharvas. "Go fetch the other priests."

 

 

 

 

When she arrives back at the Palace of the Sun an hour or so later, she has a headache and a promise from Irid that he will study ways in which to memorialize Prince Kadaman, and restore his titles in death. It's all empty, all pointless. But it might give Avad peace, and…

She can't trace it in her head, when that became so important to her. The moment protecting him started to matter so much.

Avad is back to dealing with nobles and claims for reparations when she returns; Vanasha is nowhere to be found, but Marad smiles at her, and she takes that as a sign things went well. Ersa has had enough of politics for one day. One lifetime. She collects her armor and goes to the training yard to knock her little brother around.

 

 

 

 

The next morning at dawn, the bones Sun King Jiran are laid out upon a silken bed to begin their final journey into the royal crypts. They have been stripped bare of flesh, cleaned, and left to be bathed and judged by the sun for a full week before this journey, to be made in the first light of dawn.

The new Sun-King will not be part of this procession, it would be poor luck and a worse omen for him to enter the crypts on this day, but he wakes early to see his father from the temple. Sun Priests and the highest ranked on the nobles are allowed in the courtyard to watch as the King kneels before his father's bones, prostrating himself before Jiran in prayer and mourning. While Avad is still kneeling, the chosen priests pick up Jiran's palanquin, the other priests singing a funeral song.

Holding the bed and the bones at eye level, upon their shoulders, surrounded by a ring of singers and mourners, Jiran's journey begins. The streets of Meridian are lined with Carja, silent, eager to see the Mad King leave them at last. Some trail after the procession once it's passed. There are no cheers, but waves of murmurs, shock and surprise in the air. Many of the nobility trail after the procession as well, but Avad remains kneeling for a few minutes, alone in the center of the Temple of the Sun.

Then he stands stiffly and goes to where Ersa has been standing guard. "It's over," he says softly.

She nods, distracted. "I don't remember Jiran having a head wound when he died," she says, under her breath, just loud enough for Avad to hear.

They stand side by side, watching the main street of Meridian, the dispersing crowds, the spreading rumors. His hands politely behind his back, hers crossed over her chest.

"It's said that even the Kings of the Radiant Line cannot always withstand the glory of the Sun's light," Avad says, very quietly, the pious voice he uses when parroting beliefs he himself doesn't believe. "Through no fault of their own, they crack and break in the face of the light, and so are shown unworthy."

Jiran's skull had been cracked, neatly, from brow to crown, black and obvious against the white of bone. At eye level, paraded through the streets.

No one would say Jiran had been the true king now.

"You could have told me that's what Vanasha was doing," she says.

"You're not well known for your guile, my love," he says, too quietly for anyone else to hear, but she flushes. From the teasing, or from the endearment — she doesn't know. Both, probably.

She crosses her arms more tightly. "I have guile."

"You _are_ the one who sincerely believed you were tricking me into give you your freedom," Avad says cheerfully.

"Be quiet," she says, embarrassed by the reminder, but warm, too. Happy he's teasing her, cheerful, at his father's funeral. Standing at her side, instead of kneeling before Jiran's bones. Jiran's defiled bones, now proving he had been corrupted, broken by the sun, his reign and rule illegitimate, Avad chosen to right his father's wrongs. "See if I help you next time."

"You will," he says, not a command but a blithe assurance.

"I will," she admits, standing with him in the sunlight of the temple.

The news of the massacre arrives two days later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so! it's my birthday next week so a) might not be an update for a little bit since i'm going on vacation and b) comments are amazing birthday presents!


	19. [ SIDE A: AYA ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every now and then i have a scene or idea that doesn't really fit in with the main story (read: the really strict limited pov). i don't know how many of these there will be -- three? four? -- but here's aya's.

**[ AYA ]**

 

The woman the soldiers bring in is hurt, her face red and purple with bruises, her arms covered in red burns from rope and chains. She is also unconscious.

"This isn't an infirmary," Kasha says as Ulan and Rendah carry the woman into their room and lay her on the bed. Since Tanah just married and left, her bed is the only one empty, and that is the one they place her onto.

"Why is she unconscious? Who is she?" Hava asks, talking with Jirah on her bed. It's night, but not so late that the women have gone to sleep yet; the room is crowded.

"She wasn't until a few minutes ago," Rendah mutters, spitting dry at the floor. Their burden delivered, he is already out the door, but Ulan lingers.

"She fought," Ulan says. "She's an Oseram woman; survived the Sun-Ring. The Sun-King brought her to Meridian as a token of respect. She'll work with you when she's recovered."

There's an immediate stir. "I don't want to share a room with some savage warrior!" Jaya says.

"Is it safe?" Jirah adds.

Aya stares from her bed to the woman's, her eyes wide. An Oseram! She's always heard that Oseram women are as large and as hairy as the men, who she's only seen from afar. She wouldn't have guessed this woman was one of them: she's the same size as a normal person, maybe even smaller than Ghada, the tallest woman in the barracks. She has hair only to her chin, brown where it isn't matted with blood. Her clothes are ripped and bloody, but ordinary; she has no beard or hair on her ribs.

Even so, Aya pulls her knees closer to her, her heart fluttering in anticipation.

"Did she attack you?" Ghada asks the still-lingering Ulan, who raises his hand to touch his face.

"Yes," Ulan says. "She was chained from Sunfall to Meridian, and when they took her out to put her bracelet on, she tried to make a run for it."

"And are we supposed to keep an eye on her?" Yna asks, speaking up for the first time. She has her eyes narrowed. "We are servants of the Sun-King, not guards or nursemaids."

"I know," Ulan says, exasperated. Since everyone likes him, they're always after him with requests and complaints, which aren't his duty to fulfill. Aya tries not to bother him when she can help it, but Yna is always after him. "But hopefully the fight has gone out of her."

 

 

 

 

The fight has not gone out of the Oseram.

She sleeps through the night, a presence the other woman try to ignore, who Aya keeps stealing glances at despite herself. In the morning, as they're washing up, she stirs. Jirah lets out a squeak, alerting the other women: Aya turns from the basin to see the Oseram sitting up, slinging her legs over the edge of the bed. One of her eyes is swollen shut; she looks around with her other. If she notices the cluster of women staring at her, the Oseram doesn't react: she staggers to her feet and out the door, Ghada throwing herself against the wall at her passing.

Then four or five of them rush after her, Aya included, eager to see where their new member is going. "That was frightening!" Ghada complains.

"It was like we weren't even there!" Mabi adds. Aya jostles herself forward. The Oseram woman walks down the hall — but if she's trying to escape, she's headed in the wrong direction; that way leads past more dormitories, to the cisterns and the room the servants use for washing and laundry.

"Maybe she wants a bath," Vanasha murmurs, to titters of laughter.

"Wrong way, dear!" Jaya calls, to more nervous giggles. If the Oseram hears, she doesn't respond. Yna pushes her way forward, the leader of the women.

"You two, go bring her back," she says, meaning Aya and Kasha, the two women closest to her gesture. "I won't be punished for letting that woman do what she wants."

"Should I call a guard?" Ghada asks.

"She's barely upright," Kasha says. "Come on," she sighs to Aya.

It's no trouble catching up to the Oseram, who is walking slowly, one hand against the wall for balance, only just turned around the first corner. "You shouldn't be up," Kasha says. They hem in the Oseram between them, Aya at her back and Kasha at her front. She's frightened the woman might fight them, so she stays back, but Kasha is fearless in her annoyance.

"Who are you?" the Oseram asks, raising her head, she's hunched over. No longer walking, she lists against the wall. Maybe she won't fight.

"My name is," Kasha begins.

The woman makes a noise, a harsh cough Aya only realizes a moment later is a laugh. "I don't care. I'm not staying here." She speaks slowly, a second between each word.

"You can barely stand," Kasha says. "Save it for when you can walk upright."

The Oseram slumps further against the wall, only further proving Kasha's point. Aya helps Kasha steer the woman back to the dorm. Although it's only been a minute or two, the others have all dispersed to their work; they lay the woman back on Tanah's bed.

"Stay put," Kasha says. "Or it'll be a guard bringing you back, not us."

They hurry upstairs together. "That was well done," Aya says, on the way. "I was too frightened to even speak to her."

Kasha snorts. "It's no different than when my son was a babe. If I'd hesitated or looked intimidated, she would have kept walking. Would do you good to remember that."

"I'd rather not need to," Aya says, before they part for the morning.

 

 

 

 

Despite Yna's complaints, she arranges for broth and water to be brought to the woman, and for them to take it in turns to empty her chamberpot along with theirs. After her first weak attempt at escape, the Oseram stays in bed.

Her hands are always cracked and raw. Aya uses a bit of her wages, the part she keeps instead of sending to her brother, on oil for her skin. It helps, but not enough.

"What you need is a lotion infused with the oil of a Snapmaw," Ghada says one evening. As the most beautiful of the women, she's always been something of the resident expert on makeup. "Oil from a palm, goose fat, and a drop of Snapmaw oil. And you can have it scented however you'd like." She displays her own hands, which are much softer than Aya's, it's true.

"And how are we supposed to afford that?" Jaya, who has been Ghada's closest friend for years, asks, coming over and joining them on Ghada's bed. "Machine oil is expensive."

"But it really makes a difference. Ask your lover to buy it for you!" Ghada retorts.

"He told me he's getting married," Jaya grumbles. Aya and Ghada both murmur apologies and sympathy. "It's fine. I knew we weren't going to …" Jaya waves her hand, encompassing any number of options. "Anyway, there's a guard upstairs I saw the other day."

"May I borrow a little bit of your oil, just to try it?" Aya asks, interrupting before the two get too involved in their talk of sex and romance. She doesn't understand how they can do it. Ever since the soldiers… the idea of doing that, for *fun*, makes her stomach curdle inside her. Aren't they disgusted too?

"Of course," Ghada says. "Your skin will be smooth as silk in no time at all, you'll see."

Hava shrieks and everyone goes tense, until the threat is revealed: the Oseram woman, who has not moved in several days, is up again. Her swelling as gone down, her eyes open, but her movements are still stiff and slow. Ghada's bed is the closest to the door, and so it's the three of them who follow her out this evening, Aya hanging back and allowing her friends to take the lead.

"This isn't cute," Jaya calls. The Oseram is moving more quickly today.

"We should go after her," Aya says from behind Ghada and Jaya.

"Maybe another beating will get the message in," Ghada says. "Is she just going to keep doing this?"

"Did you ever try to escape when you were sold?" Jaya asks Ghada, her tone conversational.

Ghada shrugs. Her father had fallen into debt when she was fifteen, and the whole family had been enslaved and separated. "I was sleeping on a dirt floor and eating gruel before I came here. You two in any hurry to leave?"

It's a rhetorical question. Even cleaning, Aya is better paid and cared for than if she chose to indenture herself to any other household in Meridian. If she could afford to run her own household… but where would she even get the shards?

The Oseram doesn't seem to have gotten that message. Maybe Oseram don't treat their servants and slaves well. They're said to be a brutish, wild people, so it seems likely. Aya would be terrified if she had to clean some Oseram's floors. They don't even worship the Sun's light!

Ghada and Jaya begin to drift back towards their dorm, content to let the Oseram wander into her own punishment. Aya almost follows them, but…

If she were an Oseram servant, she'd want to leave right away. So maybe…

She summons up all her nerve and follows after the Oseram.

"Aya! Come on!" Ghada says.

"No, it's okay, I'll be right back," Aya says, knowing that if she hesitates, she'll lose her nerve entirely.

It's just before curfew, and the hallways are nearly empty. There will be guards at the entrance to the palace proper, but there shouldn't be any down here otherwise, unless it's someone visiting with a friend or lover. Aya catches up to the Oseram easily.

"Let's go back," she says. "Before you get in trouble."

The Oseram ignores her. She hasn't said a word, except to Kasha a few days ago. She's faster than she was then, but still moves slowly, her hand bracing her ribs. It's not hard to keep up. "It's okay," Aya says. "We're not savage, like the other tribes."

Still nothing. How did Kasha manage to turn her around so easily? "There's nothing to be frightened of."

This strikes some sort of nerve. The Oseram woman stops walking, halfway up a staircase. Aya stops too, two steps below. The Oseram turns around. Aya has heard that Oseram have eyes as black as coal, that their whole bodies are coal on the inside because of all their metalwork, even their brains, which is why they aren't as clever as the Carja. This woman's eyes are light, her pupils small even in the dim of the corridor.

"Who are you?"

Aya knows this part of the script. She remembers it from Kasha. "Adyala," she says, although no one has ever really called her that. The Oseram doesn't interrupt her to tell her she doesn't care. Aya tries to smile. "Aya."

"I'm not frightened," the Oseram says, her eyes darting from Aya to behind Aya to the side, her hand pressing hard into her side.

"I was frightened when I came here," she says. She was only eight then, not a woman grown, but that surely won't help. "But the Sun truly watches over us who serve the Sun-King." But not Oseram. The priests have always been very clear that the Sun's Grace only extends to the Carja, who worship Him. *Could you have put your foot in it any more deeply?* she curses herself. She wishes to help the Oseram, not remind her of her damnation into eternal dark. "And — and of course, I'm certain that extends to you, too," she adds hastily. "You survived the Sun-Ring, didn't you?" Yes, that must be it.

The Oseram woman doesn't really move, or react. Aya isn't sure that she comforted her, or if she's offended. Aya bites her lip, then reminds herself not to. "You'll be treated well here; all the servants are. We have wine, and meat fortnightly. And there's a chapel for those who can't travel to the Temple of the Sun! It's not as grand of course, but it's perfectly respectable. And there are a few of your people here as well." She's seen them now and then, although the women are segregated from the laborers. Aya peers up at the woman, who is still not responding. She bites her lip. "This will be home before you know it," she says.

That's when the Oseram woman slides to the floor.

She does not quite weep, or if she does it is so silent Aya doesn't hear. She sits on the stairs, her arms crossed over her knees, her head in the space between knee and elbow and limb. Her hand, moved from her ribs to her forearm, is bloody.

Aya sits beside her.

Aya bites her lip.

"I don't *want* this to be home," the woman says, so plaintive she sounds like a child.

Aya strokes her shoulder until the Oseram has gathered herself, is no longer shaking, is ready to return to the dormitory. Aya has missed half the morning's work, but Yna puts in a word so that she isn't punished for her laziness.

 

 

 

  
Two days later, it is the waxing half moon; a temple day. In the morning light, Aya prays for her usual blessings: health, strength, peace from fear and threat, prosperity for her friends and their friendship for herself. When she is dizzy from the Sun's heat and light, she washes herself at one of the fountains, examining her skin for any early signs of the Sun's warmth. Nothing. But of course that doesn't mean her prayers went unheard.

Aya then spends a shard to join the line of worshippers waiting to speak to a priest. Most are waiting to confess a sin made in darkness, or seek atonement for a sin made in the Sun's light; a few others, like Aya, have questions or seek guidance from those who serve the Sun directly.

When it's her turn, Aya kneels before the priest. On her knees, she asks, "I have a question, Radiant Sir. Can outsiders receive blessing of the Sun?"

"Even outsiders can be blessed by the Sun, should they open their eyes to the Sun's light and welcome Him and his warmth," the priest replies in a kindly voice. "Does that answer your question?"

Aya allows herself a moment to ponder. Yes… and no. "Is it possible for the Sun to bless an outsider, even before the outsider knows she is blessed?"

"Does this outsider walk in the Light?"

"I don't know," Aya says. "No."

The priest is silent for a moment. "As the morning light touches the tops of the mesas before the Sun appears over the horizon, so can the Sun's Light touch those who have yet to walk in His Radiance. So may even an outsider be blessed, but only if they come to *see* his Light upon finding himself in its glow. Else he will surely burn and perish. Does that enlighten you, child?"

"Of course," Aya says. "Thank you, your Radiance."

He anoints her with the hot oil and murmurs a blessing over her before she stands, knees aching, to head back to the palace.

 

 

 

  
Yna hands the Oseram a folded bundle that evening: her uniform, the linen skirt and overshirt, embroidered with red and gold to show her status as a palace slave. Aya remembers still how proud she was to trade her undyed dress for the sturdy palace clothes, how having something nice to wear had eased her fears those first few days. She watches from Jaya's bed as the Oseram accepts the bundle dubiously. Her bruises have turned yellow and begun to fade, she can sit up and walk without limping.

"Do you fancy her?" Jaya asks blandly, her voice quiet to minimize eavesdropping. "Is that why you're always looking at her?"

Aya feels herself blush.

"I thought Oseram women were much more mannish," Ghada says, drawing two cards and placing down a pair. "But she's rather normal looking, isn't she?"

"I'm just curious about her," Aya says. "I don't even know her name."

"You don't need a name to fancy someone," Ghada says. She and Jaya begin to giggle over some private joke. Aya smiles, not quite understanding it. Where most of the women chat, visit friends, or play games this time of night, the Oseram prefers to sit by herself, not speaking. Sullen but no longer defiant. Her hair is too short, it's unwomanly, but were it longer she *would* be pretty…

The Oseram looks over at her, and Aya is caught staring. She flushes and looks down at her hand of cards.

Jaya and Ghada stop giggling: the Oseram woman has climbed off her bed and approached theirs. The whole room watches out of the corners of their eyes: no one is sure if she'll try and bolt for a third time. "I need a bath," she says, looking directly at Aya. "Will you show me where it is?"

Why *her?* Aya freezes, one hand still outstretched towards the deck of cards… "Oh, certainly," she says, the Sun Priest's words ringing in her ears. She clears her throat. "Just this way."

They don't have a full bathhouse, of course; you need to pay a shard for that outside of the Palace. But they have a cistern with cold water for washing, and a stove to heat the bathing pool, which is narrow but long enough for a dozen or so if they sat knee to knee. It is for all the women in the Palace, and the room is usually in use.

The Oseram looks around, and Aya wonders if she should stay, if she wants her to stay. She remembers the Sun Priest's words, but she also remembers that moment on the stairs a few days ago. The Oseram… the woman, she…

"May I ask… what's your name?"

The Oseram is struggling out of her shirt. Her movements are still stiff, and the shirt has been tattered and knotted together to keep from falling open; she peers at Aya through the arm hole before wriggling it over her head. "Ersa Freebooter."

Only nobles and priests have two names. "Is that your family title?"

"It's my job," she clarifies, throwing the shirt to the floor. Now she has only a filthy strap over her breasts and ribs, which she seems to hesitate before unwrapping. Her ribs where visible are deeply bruised, her shoulder purple. Aya has no idea what kind of a job 'Freebooter' is, or why it would also be a name.

"Ersa is a pretty name," she says politely. It's certainly exotic. "Does it mean anything?"

Ersa gives her another look. "It means that my father's father's father was named Erdan. My family is lousy with Er names."

"Is that how Oseram name their children?" Aya says, covering her mouth against a giggle, briefly imagining holding an infant and trying to decide — Erdan? Ersa? Erer?

Ersa looks like she might smile as well, as she peels off her stained leggings. Naked, her body is bruised and muscled in turns, with a scar on her leg and a healing slash on her hip and thigh. She seems unselfconscious about her nakedness, but Aya is suddenly conscious of her shirt and skirt — she's the out of place one. And they're having a normal conversation, too.

She carefully removes her own clothing, placing them over one of the hooks on the wall. Ersa fills a bucket from the cistern and sits at one of the stools. She dips a rag into the water and scrubs at her uninjured arm. They wash, Ersa's bucket growing murky and filthy with each dip of her rag — when was the last time the Oseram had bathed? Do they *not* bathe? — and then sit together in the lukewarm bath. Aya doesn't know what else to say, how to bring up her questions about the Sun and His blessing — Ersa doesn't speak, examining her wounds and bruises under the water.

"Do you know the ballad of Jaydala?" Aya asks, after several minutes of this.

"Never heard of it."

"It's who I was named after. She was a famous noble woman, who fell in love with Blessed Fahvad. He was only an soldier, so they couldn't marry, and when they were caught he was killed, but she sheltered his body with hers so the Sun…" Aya trails off, sensing Ersa's disinterest in the famous story. "Jaya was named after her too."

"You're the only one whose name I've been told," the Oseram says, and climbs from the tub.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Yna wakes Ersa with the other women and informs her that she will, now that she is sufficiently recovered, begin to work with the others.

"I will not," says Ersa.

"Do not assume that your privileged position extends so far," Yna says. "You will work. If you do not, you will be beaten and withheld rations until you cooperate. You won't be asked again."

"I said that I won't!" says the Oseram.

Yna reaches out towards her — to slap her into her senses, to yank her from her bed — and then the Oseram's hands are on Yna's throat. Kasha and Jirah tear at Ersa. Ghada runs for the guards. Aya flees the room with Ghada and then stays in the corridor with Jaya and the others, even once Ghada and Ulan return.

When the Oseram woman is carried out, unconscious, beaten bloody, Aya creeps back in. Ulan is sitting on Hava's bed, a wet cloth pressed over his eye: Ghada and Mabi are petting him. His lip is split. "Damn them, those savages can brawl," he mutters. Yna is lying pale on Vanasha's bed, and Vanasha is standing apart from the other women, her arms crossed. "So can you," he says to the woman.

"Oh, a lucky hit," Vanasha says. "She was only paying attention to you."

"Is she alright?" Aya asks, wringing her hands before Yna, then going to fetch a wet cloth for her as well.

"I think so," Jaya says. The older woman has red marks on her jaw and neck, but is breathing without difficulty.

"Damn that Oseram bitch," Hava snaps. "What is wrong with her?"

"It's all that metalwork, the smoke from the forges clouds the brain," Mabi says.

"I need to go make a report," says Ulan, standing up over the women's protests. "Will you women be alright?"

"We'll be fine," Vanasha says.

"Send for some herbs for Yna," Kasha says, taking over with Yna incapacitated. "I'll stay and watch over her. Everyone else, get to work. It's understandable if you're flustered, but that's no excuse to shirk your duties to the Sun-King."

"Yes ma'am," they all murmur.

Ghada catches Aya by the arm in the corridor. "What was that all about?"

"How should I know?" Aya asks.

"She never spoke to anyone but you, I thought…"

"How is Aya supposed to know what goes through some savage's tiny brain?" Jaya asks, arriving at Aya's other shoulder to take her defense.

Aya frowns as they walk, trying to piece some idea together. "I don't know," she says at last. What she thinks, as they part ways for the day, Ghada to the kitchens, Jaya to the laundry, and Aya to wash the grand banquet hall, is: *I think she's frightened*.

 

 

 

  
When the Oseram is brought to them for a second time, it is two days later and she is half dead. She's hot to the touch but her skin remains dry, her lips chapped and eyes sunken. She vomits up the first water she's given, and the bruises from her latest beating bloom over her shrunken figure, made worse by her dehydration.

If no one wanted to care for her the first time, this time is even worse. Aya surprises herself by volunteering to sit with Ersa during the first few critical hours she's back in the dorms, as she lapses in and out of consciousness, delirious. Whenever Aya sees the bruise on Yna's jaw, she remembers not to forgive Ersa — but…

But. The woman is so… pathetic. Aya's pity overrides her fear, her nerves and her anger. She drips water a little at a time into Ersa's mouth, wetting her forehead to try and cool her fever. The first time Ersa wakes, her eyes hazy, focusing up at Aya, Aya says, "hush. You're going to be alright."

"Tell Erend…" Ersa's arm twitches up. "They're at the pass. But if he's drunk…"

"I'll tell him," Aya says, pressing her hand to Ersa's burning forehead. She still isn't sweating. "Drink this, dear," she says, the way her mother did when she was very small.

Ersa clutches at Aya as she helps her drink a few swallows of water, her face screwed up like she's crying. But she has not the water in her even for that.

Ersa is like a small child. Helpless, clueless, in pain. Aya's heart swells with pity, and she spends the day at the woman's side, coaxing her to swallow water and then broth, cooling her forehead and then wiping sweat when it begins to pour off her body. How could this pathetic, shrunken thing have hurt Aya? Bruised Ulan? How could this clinging, crying, frightened thing be any sort of threat at all?

Ersa remains locked in illusions for some time, trapped by the heat of her fever, the test of the Sun. She calls out for 'Erend', for others — Alin, for Steel to work, Jyk, Dorin — never for 'Mother' or 'Father.' How sad. How utterly hopeless. Pity keeps Aya at the woman's bedside for a day and a night, until Ersa's fever at last breaks and she's able to sleep peacefully.

Pity brings Ersa broth in the morning, soft mash in the evening, helps her wipe down her sweaty limbs before bed at night. The morning light will touch the mesa before the Sun can illuminate it with His glow. The Sun will burn and test, but those He choses to receive His blessings can prove themselves worthy of them. Pity brings Aya to Ersa's side, and she vows to herself that she will donate a shard in prayer for her recovery and victory in this test, and help her prove herself if she can.

In her sleep, Ersa clings to Aya's skirt, her knuckles white with tension. Aya smiles and brushes the woman's hair out of her face.

 

 


	20. two. (and i'm not ready)

She's cold. Her arms are crossed over herself, legs folded, body stiff. Cold. Then Ersa is awake, briefly disoriented by the chill and the smell in the air — dust, brick, herself — _where am I?_

She opens her eyes and remembers. She's on a divan, on the balcony of Avad's room. It had still been hot, even past sundown, when she'd fallen asleep; hot enough she hadn't needed a covering. But it's much colder now, and still a few hours before dawn, to judge by the sliver of moon, low above the rooftops of Sunfall. There is a lantern burning in the room behind her, casting a flickering light through the open doorway.

Ersa runs her hands through her tangled hair and pads silently to see.

When she and Avad had returned from the Sun-Ring, they had returned to his room. She'd been tense, shaky with memories, and he hadn't sent her back to the servant's quarters, so she'd stayed. She could have left, but she'd stayed. He'd dressed himself in prince's clothing with his back turned to her, then left to attend the Sun-King's ceremonies.

She could have left, but she'd stayed.

There wasn't much to do in Avad's rooms without him: too small and unlived in to explore. He'd brought books to Sunfall, but she'd worked her body instead, stretching and exercising until she was exhausted and sore.

She could have left, but —

Ersa had briefly, very briefly, considered sleeping in the prince's bed. She'd chosen the divan instead. It would have been… too much. Not defiant but intimate. In some strange way that made her uncomfortable to even halfway consider.

Now she creeps into the doorway and sees that Avad isn't asleep, either.

The prince is sitting at his small writing desk, his back to her, head bowed over a book. He's half dressed as a prince — the knotted shirt, the silken trousers; barefoot and with uncovered hair — and she catches herself looking at the nape of his neck, his hair, black and reflecting orange in the lantern's light, thick and soft and clean looking where it brushes the base of his skull…

Ersa clears her throat.

The prince starts and turns around in his backless chair. "Ersa? I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"No," she says.

His eyes are tired, shadowed and heavy. It's still a few hours before dawn. She frowns, but he somehow guesses her question before she asks it. "I couldn't sleep," he says. Ersa is almost glad to hear it. After the late feast, Avad was to watch his father order the murders of captives taken in Red Raids.

She crosses the threshold into the room. Avad has a lantern on his desk, and the sconce near the door flickers with low candles; the room is dim and perfectly still. There's something false, eerie, about this time of night.

"I have some food," Avad says hastily. "On the bed. I had it brought up for if you woke."

Barefoot, she pads over and sits on the foot of his untouched bed. He hadn't even tried to sleep, it seems. He watches her as she examines the small tray: dried fruit and some sort of… "What is this?" she asks, picking up one of the round, soft objects.

"Bread," he says. It's like no bread she's ever seen, soft and white. "Made from grain brought from the south. It's expensive, but my father is fond, so he imports it. I'm fond of it too," Avad admits.

Ersa takes a cautious bite. It's not sweet like maizebread often is; with a soft, airy texture. At first she thinks it has no flavor, but by her second bite, she tastes something like nuts or grain or wood. She grabs another piece when she's finished with the first. "It's good," she says, her mouth full.

He smiles at her like she said something to praise _him_ , and she looks down at the tray.

"Thanks," she says. It's hard to say the words; easier when she isn't looking at him. "For letting me sleep here." She considers. "Your divan is a lot more comfortable than the mats they gave us in the servant's quarters."

She sneaks a glance up; he's still smiling at her, but stops when he sees her looking. He shakes his head slightly. "You were upset. I could hardly send you away."

Her heart clenches at _upset_ , but she doesn't know how to deny it. It's true. She was upset, she was frightened, she hadn't even known that she would be. She'd allowed him to comfort her, the _prince_ , the _Carja prince_ , told him about _Erend_. Her family. Allowed him to place his hand on hers. The memory of it, the warmth of his palm… her heart beats quicker.

Embarrassment, she thinks.

"Yes, you could have," she mutters. He should have, by rights. Should have as a spoiled idiot prince. But he wouldn't have. He'd called her _kind-hearted_ earlier today — yesterday, now — but really, isn't he the one…? The idiot…?

Who ever heard of a kind Carja prince?

She sneaks a glance up at him. He's regarding her seriously, and this time he's the one to look away when their eyes meet. "I wouldn't have. Especially not to a friend." At her silence, Avad adds: "I understand that's … not something you're comfortable with, but I do think of you as—"

"It's fine," Ersa says, interrupting him, frowning intently at her half eaten grainbread. He's promised to set her free. He lent her his own clothing, took her outside. Helped Aya. If he wants to call himself her friend…

If he were anyone else…

She doesn't know what else to say, and Avad doesn't resume his train of thought. She can hear her heart beating in her ears — the room is so _quiet_. She's sleepy, less stiff and cold, but awake, too. She's always been good at sleeping easily, waking quick. Important skills for a soldier. The room is so silent, she half-imagines she can hear Avad breathing. "What are you always reading?" she asks, to break the silence.

"…I'm not always reading the same thing," Avad points out. That gets her to frown up at him. He seems to almost be smiling. "This," he continues, gesturing, "is a transcript of Humble Ghavad… ah, a Sun Priest who lived about a hundred years ago," he says, clearly realizing Ersa has no idea who he's talking about. "He was a famous scholar who spent his days alone atop a mesa, praying and seeking understanding of the Sun. After fifteen years of isolation, he returned to Meridian, became High Priest, and shared his wisdom with Sun-King Khuvadin. His views on the Sun are one of the pillars of our worship."

"Are you sure the sun and isolation didn't just drive him mad?" Ersa asks, half under her breath. Avad smiles at her in a polite, strained sort of manner. She leans back on her hands. "You're religious?"

That same polite smile. "I don't understand the question," Avad says. "My father is Sun-King."

"Yeah, but…" Ersa isn't sure. _But Aya talks about the so-called holy sun all the time, and you don't._ Maybe that's steel pounded too thin to say. Maybe Aya is some sort of religious nut and Ersa just doesn't know it. Or maybe Avad…

_Your father doesn't like you very much, does he?_

But if he … if _Ersa's_ father was the holy Sun King, and still the father she knows, she'd surely hate the Sun out of spite. If Avad feels the same way… but then why would he study religious texts?

It's above her head and beyond her grasp. She's a mercenary, not a scholar.

"In this particular volume, Ghavad speaks of the sacrifices we should make in our devotion to the Sun," Avad continues, after a moment. "I brought it thinking it might be… appropriate for the occasion."

She'd almost forgotten.

Almost _let_ herself forget, let herself push it out of her mind. The bodies in the arena, herself in the arena. Blood and broken bone. The men she'd killed, the men and women dead around her. The soft grainbread is heavy in her stomach. "And? Has he convinced you how noble it is to murder prisoners?"

"He speaks about sacrificing one's own needs and desires in service and _aiding_ others," Avad says sharply. Maybe that's fair. But her mind is now on the sand, the bodies. Cold and lifeless. Have they already been tossed in some mass grave? Or worse, burned?

"Who were they?" she asks.

He understands what she means. "Three Nora, six Utaru, and two Carja."

"Oseram?" Ersa hates herself, a little, for caring the most about that, about her tribe. She should care about all the sacrifices, each injustice should weigh the same, but it doesn't. She's sure he'll say Erend, Erend was there and Erend is dead, until Avad shakes his head and the relief crashes over her. She pushes her hair out of her face with both hands. To ease her guilt, she asks: "How did they die? Did you _watch_ , this time?"

"They were bound and killed one by one," Avad says, "quickly, without spectacle, as a gift to the Sun and the Shadow. It was a religious rite, not intended as… entertainment. But for the two Carja. They were deserters, and so were burnt alive."

She hadn't cared much, but she had wondered. She hadn't known the Carja sacrificed their own. But why not? They enslaved their own, when families fell into debt or broke the law. Ghada had entered into slavery in that manner, only raised to work in the palace due to her natural beauty.

"Oseram deserters are branded and sentenced to hard labor," she says. "Maybe cut a leg off if they do it again. We don't _kill_ them."

"Isn't that just as inhumane?" Avad asks, running a hand over his mouth and chin. "Without legs, you can hardly work."

"You still have arms and hands. You can work the bellows at a forge. You're still _alive._ "

"That hardly sounds like a good life," Avad says.

"It's not, but that's what makes it a punishment. Besides, someone has to work the bellows."

"So the Oseram hope for deserters to gain forced labor?"

"It's not slavery," Ersa says. "They're paid. By law, the man who owns the forge or workshop has to provide for his laborers. Pay them and offer room to whoever doesn't have one of his own."

"And if you don't have legs or a means of another livelihood, are you really free to work elsewhere?"

Ersa narrows her eyes. Avad is speaking so calmly, quietly, but somehow… "It's different," she says. She doesn't like this conversation at all. It is different. All Oseram men are free by right and by law. Oseram women… well, she found a way out of her father's house, didn't she? Some women can work as smiths, have shops, inherit property when widowed. It's not like Carja women are better off. What does a stupid prince know, anyway?

"It is," Avad says. "But I wish there was a way …" he hesitates, or stops to gather his thoughts, "I wish there was a way where those who found themselves in a situation like that could be given a fresh start, not be murdered or maimed."

If you don't punish someone for breaking a law, they'll just do it again. "Why?" Ersa scoffs. "Planning on breaking any laws?"

He gives her a look she can't parse, and then looks away. "You're rather bloodthirsty," he says.

"Freebooter, remember?" She takes a handful of the dried fruit from the tray, taking little bites to make the sweetness last.

"Had you… killed before the Sun-Ring?" he asks, after a long pause.

Ersa is quiet for a moment, too. "Yes," she says. "What?" she adds, brittle. "Did you think I was fighting Watchers out there?" Something in his look — his eyes — not angry or offended or impatient, something almost _sad_ — she looks away from him. "When I was a bit younger, they'd have me hang back, with a cannon or firespitter." She'd been smaller, less strong. Always the only woman. Someone had needed to provide covering fire, and the men had never wanted to do it out of some kind of macho pride.

Pride she understands. She hadn't liked it much, either.

She'd killed her first Carja when she was seventeen. It had been almost an accident. Even only eight years ago, the cannons were less accurate and slower. She hadn't even realized she'd hit him until after the battle, when they'd seen the burns and shrapnel.

"The first time I was so far away from the battle, it didn't feel like anything much. When I got a bit older, and better with a pike, I could fight with the men on the frontlines. But that didn't… _feel_ like anything, either." She doesn't know the word for it. The feeling of pressing a blade into a human body. The sound. Smell. His face, eyes, skin. Always different, always blurred in her memory. But every time, it hadn't felt… personal. Every time, she'd been defending her home, her people or her brother at her side. It had felt _right_ to kill those men.

But the Sun-Ring… "The Sun-Ring, though," she says, her voice flat and disaffected as she can make it. "I've never…" _All_ battles are life and death, whether they're against a Carja raiding party or a herd of Grazer. But never had she known it, been so sure of her own death, so surrounded and outnumbered and afraid… "… _That_ felt… different."

"I didn't intend to bring up painful memories," Avad says.

She can't remember how they got here. To this part in the conversation. To her talking to him like this. To her talking to him… at all. _You're that Oseram girl_ , he'd said, smiling down at her. She shakes her head.

"Things will be different when my brother is Sun-King," Avad says.

"And when exactly will that be?" she asks, bitterness creeping into her voice.

He smiles at her, none of it in his eyes — his eyes dark and focused — and…

She rubs her forehead. She doesn't have time to wait fifteen or twenty years for Sun-King Kadaman. And didn't Avad say earlier that Jiran wanted the youngest brother to inherit anyway?

"If you're tired," Avad says, misunderstanding her gesture, "you can feel free to sleep there," he says, gesturing at her and his bed. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight, and I want to finish this text."

The bed is soft, and the night is only half over. Ersa is aware of her weariness again. The prince's bed is without question the biggest and softest she's ever seen, with a long oval pillow and piles of silken and linen blankets, with a heavy embroidered rug for warmth on cool desert nights. But there's no way. There's just no way she can sleep in Avad's bed, with the prince sitting only a few feet away.

"I'll sleep outside," she says, pulling the rug off the bed as she stands. "But I'm taking this with me. It gets damn cold out here."

"Very well," he says with a slight smile. He has shadows under his eyes, and the beginnings of lines forming in the shadows.

She hesitates. "You should sleep too," she says, the rug heavy in her arms. "You can read tomorrow."

His smile is more in his eyes, as if he's pleased to be ordered around by her. Probably is, the idiot. "I'll try," he says.

"Goodnight," she says.

"Goodnight."

Ersa wraps herself in the rug outside on the balcony, curling up on the divan until her body heat warms her bundle. She watches the light flickering in the open doorway through half-open eyes until she falls asleep.

 

 

 

 

Avad is already awake when she rises early the next morning, looking exhausted but full of a faux energy. He's ordered them breakfast — a spiced maize porridge with dried fruit, small roast birds, and a bitter, watery tea made of something called 'beans of cacao' that he claims wakes and gives energy to those who drink it.

There will be another religious ceremony and another group of sacrifices after dark, one more round of prayers to ensure the Queen has a healthy son; before that, Avad dresses in his disguise and Ersa tries to make herself presentable in his clothing, and they leave the palace again.

There are more festivities than the day before. Fire throwers and spitters, musicians and dancers, a parade of Sun-Priests and worshippers singing as they march through SunFall.

Avad and Ersa don't go near the Sun-Ring this time. They wander the market, neither of them with shards, and up and down the main streets. Avad makes them stop and listen to epic poems; Ersa notes all the food stands. A man offers a cauldron of shards to any who can best him in strength on one corner; Avad has to grasp Ersa by the elbow to keep her from an attempt.

From a high street they find a high roof and a high tower, but the famous Tallneck is too far to be spotted even from such a height. They watch gymnasts along one of the main boulevards, contorting themselves, leaping about, dancing with fire and sparks. Avad forces them to enter one of the temples in the city, where he sits in prayer and Ersa looks around, bored.

In a tavern, she wins them enough shards in a knife-throwing contest that they can finally eat, although Avad disapproves and worries she's ruining their disguises in the contest: women don't _do_ that sort of thing and go unnoticed. _Aren't I cross-dressing as a Carja man today?_ she asks, counting her five shards over and over.

 _No one would mistake you for a man_ , he says, oddly embarrassed. They split a skewer of spicy roast pepper and onion.

In the early evening, they head slowly back to the palace, Ersa tired and hungry. They walk through a residential area of twisted alleys and random stairs, along the same street where a year from now, Ersa will kill Arnhen.

But now she and the prince walk side by side and silently, their arms almost touching. The street is narrow, so.

So, so.

"Today wasn't bad," she says, when the palace is only yards away. On Avad's direction, they'd ducked into an alley, and he is adjusting his clothing, wiping off orange dust and trying to make himself look a bit more princelike before they return. Ersa leans against a wall, arms folded, watching.

He smiles up at her, one leg folded at the knee, balancing as he tries to dust off his pants leg. "Yes," he says.

She hesitates as he straightens. Wants to say — doesn't want to say. Doesn't know why. Knows why. "If you ever want to sneak out…"

"Yes," he says again, sparing her from having to say it. "You're better company than my brother."

"That's going far," she says, holding her arms tighter over her, looking away.

"Fair enough," Avad says. "Kadaman is my brother. But he only likes to gamble and fight."

"I should have gone out with him," Ersa sighs. Smiles, teasing, at Avad's concerned blink. "This wasn't bad," she says again.

"Thank you," he says, now more serious, even though he's also trying to smooth out his hair. She catches his eye, and he's grinning at her. Not wide and laughing, the way Erend does it, or she does — grinning the way _Avad_ does, which is less of a laugh and more in the eyes, warm and pleased. Like standing in an alley together is some great fun, mussed and sunburnt and tired from a day of walking and exploring, his hands have lowered and he's stepped closer to her —

And _oh_. Just a step, just one step, but it's a narrow alley. So. He swallows. Her eyes dart to his neck. Mouth. Back to his eyes. There's no way, even with some rule about not looking at Carja princes and kings, there's no way women don't peek anyway. He's skinny, but he's actually…

_Oh._

Avad clears his throat and moves a step back. Shakes his head and adjusts his collar, tugs at his shirt. "I had a very good time today," he says, no longer looking at her. "Thank you for accompanying me."

"You're welcome," Ersa says, the formality catching. What? "I had an enjoyable time, too."

What just _happened?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reposted this -- it'd help if i formatted it properly, he? 
> 
> ngl, my favorite thing to write about in this whole story is the food. forget avad, ersa/food 4ever.
> 
> i would really, really appreciate any thought you have about this story/my weird food obsession/whatever — positive or negative. i realize what a weird little niche this fanfic falls into, but i do seem to have a readership and so i'd like to know what ya'll think!


	21. two. (we're the only difference)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's always great when i get to add a new character to the summary

Sun-King Jiran's procession returns to Meridian in the late evening after another three day journey. Ersa hadn't liked the boat trip any better the second time; when she'd mentioned how awful she was sure it would be, Avad had actually laughed at her. "It's called water-sickness," he'd said, clearly amused. She'd never really seen him laugh before; she was embarrassed and annoyed but strangely mollified at the same time. "I wouldn't have thought you were prone."

She doesn't see him on the journey back to Meridian: Ersa is returned to the servants procession, where she is treated frostily. Her absence has been noticed. It bothers her, but… at the same time, it doesn't.

No matter.

When she arrives back in Meridian, back in the slave barracks, her friends have waited up for her. She gives them a few pebbles and silk flowers she'd scavenged from Sunfall and the journey as souvenirs. Jaya is originally from Brightmarket, but Ghada and Aya have never left Meridian. They want to know everything. Did she see the Tallneck? Was it hot as they say? Was the lake beautiful? Ersa tells them what she can, leaving off all mentions of her time with the prince.

Something has changed.

Something has shifted.

The next morning, she is awoken still tired from the late night and long journey, by Yna. "The solstice is a fortnight away," she says. "Even the prince's pet needs to help. You're in the kitchens."

Ersa tries to smile. She wants to be sweet to Yna, who has every reason not to like her. She knows that. But she feels a hot flash of anger at the same time. She's not a _pet_. She's the prince's —

 _Friend_.

When did that happen? When did Ersa change sides? Horrified, she goes to the kitchens with Ghada. They shuck maize for hours, endless mountains to be pounded into flour for flat breads. Ersa's shoulders burn, but the pain suits her mood. For a moment, when Yna had given her an order, she'd wanted to refuse.

Is she spoiled? After just a week? After two days of food and company? Has she forgotten her real friends? Her real loyalties?

"What's gotten you in such a bad mood?" Ghada asks Ersa an hour before their midday rest. The palace has hired additional servants to prepare for the feasts and rites that go with the Summer Solstice. The head cook usually keeps a tight rein on the men and women who serve under her, but Tanama's grip has slipped with the added chaos, and so they can speak quietly together.

Ersa glances up through her bangs at Ghada, who is working quickly at their mountain of maize. A yank and a twist and the husks are removed, three quick movements and the silk is gone, the maize is tossed into a crate and the husks swept to the floor with one more arm movement. She's much tidier than Ersa, her maize less covered in silk.

"Nothing," Ersa says, digging her fingers into another husk.

Is she the prince's pet? Has she become the prince's pet? No, no, of course not. But why is it that when Yna had said it to her, she'd gotten angry? Not at the implication, but because … because she'd wanted to defend him. The prince. Tell Yna he wasn't that bad. As though it was alright, in that case.

Is she _that_ fickle? Truly?

Another thing on her mind: Avad had promised that she would leave Meridian, forever, in the midst of the solstice. There's nothing to waver over _there_ : Ersa will leave and not look back. Not for a single moment. Not for a single person. Only…

"If you could… buy your freedom, would you?" Ersa asks. She and Ghada aren't close, but Ghada is a slave just like her, wears a hammered cuff to mark her status.

Ghada glances sideways at her. "Look," she says, pulling at the neck of her overshirt. There, below her collarbone, at the top of her right breast, is a tattoo. A brand. Ersa only catches a quick glimpse — a fish and glyph AN — before Ghada readjusts her shirt. Picks up another ear to shuck. Her entire demeanor calm. "Before I was here, I was enslaved to a fishmonger in the village," she says. "I smelled of fish all day and night, I was always finding scales _everywhere_. I had to sell fish from dawn to dusk, and if I had leftover I wouldn't eat. Before that I was enslaved to the royal mint, sorting shards to be cut. I had burns for years. Cuts all over my fingers. Before that,"

"I get it," Ersa says, apologetic.

"Before that, my family worked the orchards for the Parda Talnad family, who rented the land from the Khane Padish family," Ghada continues, never pausing in her work. "I have brands from the mint and the orchards, as well. I know you Oseram don't have indentured peoples."

"We have indentured… it's not important," Ersa says, shaking her head, but Ghada glances over and she elaborates anyway. "When boys are young, they're indentured to learn a trade. Ten, fifteen years of labor and then they can stay on or start their own forge. You're not sold into it." Not like Ghada, sold with her sisters when her parents were unable to pay their dues to their landlord one too many times.

Although… Ersa's family is a disgrace, but they have income. Erend had never needed to indenture or learn a craft, and if he had chosen to and failed, he would have been able to buy his debt and return home. Their father's father's father had claimed land. Without that income, if Erend had been indentured and wanted to leave…

It's sickening, to realize that were she Carja, she would have been more alike with the nobles who had rented land to Ghada's landlord than with Ghada herself.

"Well, here I can be free if my family pays my way out of it. But until then, I'm fed well here, can visit the palace chapel, and sleep in a comfortable bed. And I can wait to marry who I want," Ghada adds impetuously.

"Your famous secret lover again," Ersa murmurs, disquieted by this whole shift in conversation. But it's good, isn't it? If her friends are happy here, she doesn't have to try to find a way to bring them to freedom with her?

If Ghada had said she hated the palace, Ersa knows she would have to at least _try_. Would it truly be harder for two or four slaves to escape than just one? How many is she obliged to ask? She already knows she needs to at least check with Jaya and Aya. But at least they're freewomen.

"I'll tell you something secret," Ghada says, clearly much more interested in speaking of love than slavery. "It really started as just a joke."

"So you're _not_ the mistress of some rich priest?" Ersa would rather stew on social dynamics in annoyed guilty misery, but she tries to enthuse herself.

"Not at all. It was a game to tease Jaya. She gets so worked up trying to guess!" Ghada offers a rare smile. "I don't know when, but I _will_ marry him. And then I'll be a free man's wife," she adds teasingly, "and you won't have to worry about my tragic past any longer."

"Why haven't you married him yet?" Ersa asks, smiling slightly as the teasing connects.

"His family doesn't care for me," Ghada says. "But he insists on trying to convince them." she smiles as she shakes her head, fondly, thinking of her mysterious lover. "But we'll marry, and of course you can come to the marriage ceremony. I don't know how you Oseram do it, but Carja ceremonies are wonderful. Feasts for days, silken banners and ribbons, songs and music."

"Better make it soon," Ersa says. Ghada smiles, misunderstanding. In two weeks, Ersa will no longer be in Meridian to see it.

For the first time, she feels a pang of regret.

 

 

 

She asks Aya and Jaya that evening if they would leave the palace if they could.

Jaya: "Are you offering to employ me? No? Then why would you ask? If I wanted to marry and work on a farm, I would have when I was young. Oh, I know I'm younger than you, but you know, most girls marry when they're eighteen. I like living in the palace."

Aya: "It's a great blessing to be allowed to directly serve the Sun King. And, well, it's safe here. We won't ever starve or be mauled by machines. Why do you ask? Ersa, are you still… are you still not comfortable here? Has something happened?"

She'd said no, of course not, aware that she was being obvious in her questions. But then again, maybe being obvious is in itself a good strategy. Let everyone think she's planning an escape. Then, when Ersa does leave, maybe they'll assume she did it without help, leaving Avad above suspicion.

That night she sleeps with her fingers curled around her blue tile. She wishes she could convince her friends to leave with her. But… they _are_ Carja. Carja are forged differently, from lighter metal. Carja like heat and peppery foods, feathers and dyed silk. Perhaps they like living without freedom. Perhaps Carja are like the songbirds or rabbits or mice children keep as pets. Carja are weak; they don't have the will to argue or fight over things they care about. Perhaps living in a cage, fed and clothed, is enough to make them happy.

It fits with what she's always been told: the mad Sun King, reining over a flock of soft, mindless Carja. It's probably true. It makes sense. Geese aren't unhappy in a pen.

Except Ersa's not sure. She's not sure that Carja are all like that. Not at all, anymore.

 

 

 

The third morning back in Meridian, a week after returning, Avad sends for her. Arnhen takes her not to the training ground or to his apartments, but to a room Ersa recognizes: one of the many assembly rooms of the palace.

She's scrubbed the floors with Aya.

Avad is dressed formally today — silk vest, machine arm bands, a linen knotted shirt and a machine band partially covering his hair. He's acting as a prince, not simply as 'Avad;' when Arnhen brings Ersa over, he's speaking to a pair of older men, dressed in the dyed linens that denote a lower status.

Carja care a lot for status, and clothing that shows it. She's learning.

The room is large, three or four times bigger than the main hall of her family home, and empty. The ceiling is high and bends and curves in carved domes and arches, the light from open windows reflecting off polished mirrored machine metal, more white machine parts tiled over pillars and the walls. The floor is huge slabs of smooth polished white stone, etched here and there with religious symbols: suns and significant constellations, the moon in phases. The room is bright and hot, all that machine metal absorbing the sun.

As she and Arnhen stand a polite distance from the prince and the men, Ersa swats at a fly that keeps returning to her. With a pair of low bows, the men are dismissed from the conversation. Avad remains standing straight, not even sending them away with a thank you, but when he turns to Ersa and Arnhen he's smiling.

"Father is allowing me to arrange the court's musicians for the festival," he announces cheerfully, dismissing Arnhen with a wave. "Come back in a quarter of an hour's time. I don't have long," he says as Arnhen bows and retires, directed back to Ersa. "But I wanted to see you."

She smiles, and then catches herself. "So you're here planning a ball?"

"Even Oseram have dances," the prince says. "I've read about it. I've always enjoyed music and dances, although Father never let me study music."

"You have a new habit," Ersa says, crossing her arms.

He blinks. "Do I?"

"You explain yourself before I even ask a question."

"I've grown used to you demanding explanations from me," Avad says. Ersa narrows her eyes slightly. That _must_ have been a joke.

She looks about the room. "Oseram have dances, and festivals, but we don't have them in places like this."

"Nor do most Carja," Avad points out. "My father will expect no less than perfection to honor the Sun on His longest day. The musicians will be there," he says, pointing, "and I am arranging for dancers and entertainment to accompany them. Then of course will be music and open dancing, followed by the feast at sundown, which will be accompanied by poetic readings and stories by the very best in the Sundom."

It all sounds pretty dull. Ersa doesn't mind a good party, drinking and lively music and a dance or two, but this? But Avad is clearly excited, pointing her around the ballroom, and she tries to feign some interest for him. "I wish you could come as my guest," he says, which shocks the polite smile right off her face. "I've never gotten to plan something like this before. I want it to be perfect."

There are so many things wrong with his first statement that all she can do is ignore it. Avad is staring almost dreamily across the room, no doubt imagining a ball. "Nice of your father to let you," she mutters, for a second seeing herself dressed as some silly Carja, a room lit softly by candles. Dirt under her nails.

"No," Avad says, his tone more serious. "Father only gives us tasks when he wants to keep an eye on us."

"Should you really be telling me this?" Ersa asks, pushing her hair out of her face.

He gives her an inscrutable look. "Perhaps it's because the Queen is pregnant again, but Father is wary of late. Still, this is a duty I'm happy to fulfill. I _like_ music."

"Idiot," Ersa says. She half winces. It's changed, she can talk to him now, she's given up on _sirs_ and _your highnesses_ , but there must still be a line. One easier and easier to forget. "He's probably giving you something he knows you like so you'll let your guard down."

"Why should a son be wary of his own father?" Avad asks mildly.

She bites her tongue and looks away. She'd forgotten. Avad isn't — he's hinted that he's not happy with his father, but he isn't like her. Or is he? Some of the things he's said have been treasonous — perhaps not for a prince, but… but. She's a mercenary, not a politician.

"Here," Avad says, letting his question go unanswered. "Let's look at the banquet hall. I've hired a famous storyteller to perform for us," he adds. "He used to be a Hawk of the lodge."

Too soon, Arhnen returns for Ersa, escorts her back through the palace, where she rejoins Ghada in the kitchens for another eight hours of preparing maize.

Too soon. Not soon enough.

Something is changing, and she doesn't know how or to what. Or to whom.

 

 

 

The next morning, she is summoned at dawn to the training yard. For once, Avad did not bring a book.

In the weeks since Ersa began playing at being the prince's trainer, she has lost the attention of the Carja guard. She is no longer novel, and when they practice, only Avad's guard stand watch. Even they seem to have relaxed a little. It would be much easier now to kill Avad, even take a steel sword from a guard to use to do the deed. But that's changed too. Ersa used to fantasize daily, hourly, plotting escapes and murder.

When did that end?

When did she start smiling, a little, when she greeted the prince in the morning?

Sunfall, she thinks. Something about Sunfall, his hand on hers, had changed something between them. The cool room at night. The red dust of the city. It had changed them. Or had it been before? When did she start to…?

She smiles as he hands her a practice sword. "I want you to fight me seriously today," she says.

"I always fight you seriously," Avad says.

"You always fight defensively until I tell you we can stop," Ersa says. "You said it yourself, your brother made you fight him. Take this seriously for once."

Avad looks almost petulant, she smiles, eyes narrowed in victory. He raises his sword. "Very well," he says. "But only because this will be the last morning we can practice for a while."

"Excuses," she says, raising hers. It's a silent contest, who can hold position longest. She's stronger now, better fed, but still weaker than her best. And he's still skinny.

"The Solstice," he counters.

His arm starts to shake moments before Ersa loses her own control. She makes the first strike. He blocks. He's strong on his right, so she strikes on his left. Parry. Thrust. She steps forward, he retreats. Strike. Parry, strike. Block. He's still fighting defensively, blocking until she or Kadaman are done, willing to let him go back to his books and music. Ersa narrows her eyes, pushes her hair back. _Thrust_ , parry, _thrust_ , going at the prince hard, not holding back her strength for him, until they break, paces apart.

"Your _highness_ ," she says.

He almost rolls his eyes, and then Avad takes the offensive.

He _is_ a good swordsman.

Good bordering on very, certainly far beyond what she'd originally attributed to him. If only he cared. He's taller, has a better reach, but their strength is close and by now she knows the way he fights: he pushes her back a few paces and she blocks, blocks, no parrying, used to the strength of heavy armor. She gains the advantage again, grinning, but he knows her abilities well: perhaps better, used to watching her attack. He parries and strikes again, the quick Carja style, offense and speed and unguarded ribs; she strikes sideways and he dodges instead of parries.

He's good. He's _very_ good. She's grinning as they fight, she wants to win, she wants to beat him _fair_ , out of breath, her heart pounding. Why had he let this go to waste? Why had she been denied this fun? On the offensive, heavy blows, she drives him back — he blocks each strike, with difficulty, his expression serious and focused against her grin —

He manages to sweep her back and she moves away, clears room, out of his reach — he shifts his weight, he'll lead with thrust to the left — and then he lowers his sword quickly, looking over Ersa's shoulder.

She turns, pushing her bangs from her sweaty forehead, to see the Sun King's own champion, Helis, striding towards them, his chest plates and drawn sword burning in the sunlight.

"My prince," Helis says. "I was told you had resumed your martial practice. Your father is most pleased."

Carja bow before Avad. Helis, despite his deferential title, does not.

Ersa is sweating and her heart is racing, and she is suddenly very, very cold.

He's just as large as he was in the Sun-Ring: it hadn't just been her imagination, twisting him into a shadowy monster. He's tall and broad, all sinew and muscle, a heat and strength boiling from him. One blow. One blow in the Sun-Ring and she'd been in chains. An oily smile on his face, ice in his pale eyes.

She has a wooden sword. How do you kill your way from this? What do you do? His height, his weight: armor, leaving large parts of his torso exposed. His neck. You have a wooden sword. Go.

Survive.

She is standing between Helis and Avad, frozen. She wishes she could move behind Avad: it's shameful and cowardly, but she wants that buffer, that frail protection. She stays still, unmoving, looking up at Helis, meeting his creepy eyes.

Of course, he doesn't even look at her.

"I am glad to hear it," Avad is saying, his voice calm and controlled. "And flattered you've chosen to witness it in person. I trust I haven't shamed your teachings too badly?"

Helis gives an oily smile. "What the Sun King questions is your choice in teacher," he says. "At first it was amusing, but the Sun King tires of your joke."

"As you're aware, I am no great warrior. I'm afraid even this girl is a match for me," Avad says. Ersa can't help it, she turns and gives him a look — _this girl_? — a shot in her belly.

Helis grabs her arm, snake quick, his grip like steel. He yanks and she loses her stance — he could lift her, easily, with just a hand. She fights back, yanks, and he gives but not much. "You do _not_ look upon the line of the Sun!" he snarls, as she tries to regain her footing. He could break her arm with one jerk.

"Unhand her," Avad says, calm, quiet, his voice _tense_.

Helis does, and Ersa stumbles. Her arm aches, the skin will bruise, but she refuses to look or touch it. She hadn't released the wooden sword, and her knuckles whiten on the handle.

There's an anger in Helis, rolling and then waning, barely in check. In waves, like a forge heat. Avad had said his father didn't like him. He'd never mentioned that his father's champion despised him. "If you insist on sullying the Sun King's blood by consorting with this girl, I invoke my right as General and insist on assessing her strength. It would not do," Helis says with that oily smile, "for your highness to be taught poorly by some savage."

She feels the fear, the cold creeping in her limbs. One blow. The heat of the Sun-Ring. But she'd been injured then, exhausted and bleeding. She's stronger now, prepared. Unless he intends something else, something worse…

Ersa waits for Avad to protest. "Very well," he says, and her belly grows ice cold. "If you would like to test Ersa, by all means. You may use my sword," Avad says, extending the wooden handle.

His sword is wood. Okay. Okay. Helis is heavy and tall and strong, but with a wooden blade…

Avad does not go to Helis; Helis must approach the prince to take the practice blade. "An honor," Helis says. He is sarcastic, but must think he is being dry. "Raise your sword, girl," he says lazily. Avad takes a few steps back, never turning, his arms behind his back and expression tight and somber.

Helis lashes out with the wooden sword and dislocates Ersa's shoulder in one blow. "I told you not to look at the Sun!"


	22. vii. (bricks and mortar)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how to write erend:  
> 1\. he's pure  
> 2\. there is no 2

The rains had finally come to Meridian, and so the Sun-King held court inside. Already, artisans had been hired to redecorate the throne room, the room where Avad had killed his father; the throne and dais are moved to the grand ballroom instead.

Aside from enjoying being outdoors, Ersa quickly realizes another reason Avad prefers to hold court on the terraces ringing the palace: the narrow walkways limit the number of people who can approach him. Avad had in his first days as King proclaimed that any who wished could approach him and ask him for aid or favor. In practice, it means the ballroom is packed full of curious spectators.

Ersa and Koldan stand on either side of the dais, representing the Vanguard and the Kestrel guard, Oseram and Carja respectively; Marad and a few other advisors — commerce, agriculture — sit on low, unadorned stools, ready to offer information if asked.

The rain is doing nothing to keep the petitioners away.

First request: recompense for damages caused in the invasion of Meridian. Ah, no, your grace; my king. It was not an invasion but a _liberation_. Nevertheless, my orange groves —

Next: Permission to reform a hunter's guild. No, not associated with the Hunter's _Lodge_. Well, because they are not well-born. However, they pay the required taxes —

Third: The taxes are too high.

Fourth: The taxes are too high.

Fifth: A noble, simpering. Would my king be so kind as to grant my pregnant wife the honor of bestowing his name upon our unborn son? So that he may grow strong in the shadow your light?

Sixth: Reports of insurgents to the north.

The west.

The south.

The east.

Fifteenth: There are thieves, there is crime.

Seventeenth: It's probably the Oseram causing it.

Twenty: Why have the Oseram committing crimes not been killed yet?

Avad promises to investigate the damage to the orange groves, to investigate the taxes his treasury has leveed. He would be most honored if Lord so-and-so named his unborn son after him. There will no longer be killings in the city of Meridian. Was the palace massacre not enough? Was the Sun Lodge not enough? The Sun has spoken and the Sun-King speaks for Him, and the Sun requires no more blood split in His name, in his Light. Now is a time to heal and grow strong.

Yes, he will investigate whether the Oseram are responsible.

Avad is starting to look tired — still sitting upright, his expression carefully somber, but Ersa catches his gaze darting around restlessly and she knows him too well by now. He'll already have three or four plans for taxes and border patrols running in his head, at once, and is probably desperate to talk them out and take action. She wonders if he'll break for an early lunch — hopes he will, she wants to talk to him about that whole 'Oseram crime wave' thing, but he calls for the next petitioner and a Carja in dusty traveling silks steps forward.

He has been waiting his turn for some time — he is armed with sword and bow, and so Ersa had noted the man's presence when he'd joined the line in the ballroom. He doesn't look like a threat, but who can really tell?

He bows low, a murmured "your Radiance."

"Yes," Avad says. "You may rise and speak."

The Carja does, and looks over at Ersa before he hesitantly looks up at Avad. "I - I was a Kestrel, under the previous - under your father. I defect under risk to myself, and I beg your mercy, Sun-King, and mercy for my family, as I have brought information of a grave attack on your… allies, the Oseram."

"What?" It's Ersa who speaks, not Avad. There is a murmur, eyes on her — Avad turns just enough to shoot her a glance. _Don't._ Like she cares. She steps forward. "What are you saying?"

The Carja's gaze remains focused on Avad. "Answer her," Avad says.

"High Priest Bahavas ordered a raid on the Oseram —"

Now there is a louder murmur, and not because Ersa had dared to open her mouth. She barely notices, her head going tight and white with heat. "— four days ago," the Carja continues.

"Four days!" she's before the man now, grabs him by his silk collar, both handed, lifting him — he scrambles to get his legs under him, coughing, she twists at the cloth so it chokes. "Four days ago? And you waited in _line_ to tell the king?"

"I - I was unsure -"

"Ersa," Avad says, his voice tense. She drops the Carja, the miserable, sniveling coward. The spineless fool. Bringing information for a _reward_ , so Avad will grant him a _pardon_ , when he should be killed for treason and weakness — waiting in line, like some sort of slow-witted Carja fool —

She wants to kick him, but Kol is coming up on her elbow, and there is anger rolling from the crowd. Not because of another Red Raid. Of course not. At her, at her _daring_. She should kick his damn skull in, show them what she thinks —

She turns and glares up at Avad, who has stood himself, to frown down at her. Very _kingly_. "I'm taking my men north," she says.

"By the time you arrive in Pitchcliff, the damage will already be done."

Her ears are ringing, her face hot. "So that's it? It will be done?" He's not wrong. It had taken her, Steel, and Alin, six… no, closer to a week to travel from their capture to the Sun-Ring. They had been further north. Five days to Pitchcliff? Four? On a three, nearly four, day's head start? It will take Ersa three days to get there with her men, quick march, little rest. Avad is right, the math is bad. "We'll intercept them on their return," she says. "They won't be expecting an ambush on the road."

"Because their roads are heavily patrolled," Avad says.

"Their roads?" she snaps. "We've just given them Sunfall?"

Murmurs, loud, angry buzzing. Don't defy the king, she knows, but — Marad stands, tries to defuse. "Your men are the backbone of Meridian's defense," he says. "The King is loathe to risk your lives."

"Then my men will be more than capable of pushing into _their_ lands," Ersa says, her voice low with threat. She meets Avad's eyes, furious with him. Spitting with fire and rage. He knows. _He knows_ , he knows better than this. "I will not allow a _single_ raid of my people," she says, raising her voice. "I will not stand for any man who does not _act_ to stop them."

"We do not have the men to attack Sunfall directly," Avad says. "I will not spill the blood of my people for naught."

"Just the blood of mine?" That hits him; she sees the flash.

"We will prepare strategic strikes," Marad soothes. "The Blazon Arch. Food supply lines. Trade. They will pay for their transgressions."

But that will not bring her people back. That will not bring Steel and Alin, the captives of the Sun Ring, all those killed back. It will not wash the blood from this palace. Ersa doesn't look away from the king, daring him to respond. His expression doesn't change, but she can see his mind working behind his eyes, the stillness he has when walking through plans and threads.

He addresses Marad, not her. She's lost. Her heart drops and then grows tight and cold. "Release two hostages to Sunfall and have them deliver the message that henceforth all trade between the insurgents and the Free Peoples will be stopped. Seize all caravans entering or leaving the insurgent's territories."

"Very good," Ersa snaps, leaving. "Let me know how that goes when I return."

"I do not give you permission to run off on a revenge quest," Avad says angrily.

She flashes hot, turns back to face him. "I am not some Carja _wife_ ," she snaps.

It strikes him harder than the angry, buzzing courtiers expect; she has made a mockery of him, but surely the Sun King is above the insults of some woman.

It strikes Avad exactly as hard as Ersa wanted it to.

She storms to the barracks. Kol follows her halfway there. "You should not go," he says.

"Are you going to fight me?"

"I don't care enough for that," the Carja admits. She smiles humorlessly. "I will guard the king while you're gone," he says.

"Send patrols north and west."

"I am sworn to obey," he reminds her, peeling off to rejoin the no doubt fussy and upset crowd in the ballroom.

The rain has long ended, and Erend is sitting around the training yard with some of the others, playing Strike and drinking. "Get dressed and armed," she snaps, not breaking her stride. "We're going north."

Some of the men don't move, but Erend is on his feet at once, stumbling over the bench in his haste to follow after her as she heads to get her own weapons, not the light armament she wears in the palace. "What's going on?" he asks.

She takes a deep breath. Stops herself, turns back towards the men. All wary, most still sitting. "There's a Carja raid up north."

That rouses them, cursing, dice falling to the dirt. "We need to move fast, they have a three day head start," Ersa says. "Erend, Huld, other Erend, Klint, Forn, you're with me. The rest of you…" it's like sand in her mouth, she's still angry, but, "guard your King."

"I want Tyn with us," says Klint, standing. Tyn stands with him.

"No," she says. "We move fast and light. What are you standing around for?" she snaps at the other Erend and Huld, who practically flee into the barracks.

"I'm a better tracker than Forn," says Tyn.

"I've made my decision," she says.

"It's alright," Forn says. "I'm not back to full strength yet, Tyn can smash those damn Carja for me."

Tyn can, he's strong and muscled and tall, but Tyn is mouthy and frankly, Ersa just doesn't like him: hasn't since the first day he flirted with her in the Claim. She doesn't like Klint much either, but Klint is the best tracker she has. "Get your armor, Forn," she says.

"Oh! So now you're the captain?" Klint says bitingly. "You haven't spent much time with us of late, I thought you'd forgot."

She forces a smile, twisted and false. There's no _time_. Not for this. "I didn't think you were so needy, Klint," she says, trying to sound light.

"It's the Carja king that's needy, from what I hear," Tyn mutters. Klint, Forn, and a few others chuckle.

"Who are we?" Ersa snaps. There is no immediate response, so she answers her own call. "We're the Vanguard! And we _serve_ the _king_!"

"Aye, serve," Klint says. "And I'm happy to do it. But _I'm_ still an Oseram, not a pretender Carja."

"And what do you mean by that?" Ersa asks, although she has a pretty good suspicion. He steps towards her, and she doesn't move in response: like stone, carved to the earth beneath her feet. Sometimes she hates being a woman. Hates being smaller than every one of her men.

"All day and night you're in the Carja court, batting your eyes at the Carja folk, dressing and acting like some woman when you aren't by _law_ ," Klint says. "I'll serve a man and I'll serve a soldier and, steel and spit, I'll serve a Carja king, but I won't serve some _girl_ who thinks she's better than us because she's sucking some Carja's _cock_!"

"Hey!" Ersa doesn't flinch, doesn't look away; it's Erend who grabs Klint, wrenches him away from her, choking him with one hand. "That's my _sister_ , bastard!"

"You're going to defend that whore?" Klint snaps, pushing free.

"When was the last time she slept here in the barracks?" Tyr calls.

"She's got other beds to spread out in," someone — Gat? — calls. There are chuckles.

She should have seen this coming.

"Ersa would never and you guys all know it!" Erend calls back, looking around them all. "She's busy doing all the shit the rest of us don't want to do, and now, when we have heads to bash, you're going to fight her? Our people are being killed, and Ersa's going to lead us to save them! Just like before! Or was that a problem for you all last time, too?"

There's no immediate response, laughter or taunt. Ersa feels a pang of anger at her little brother, one she pushes back down again. "Forn," she says, "get your armor on. Darl, you're coming too." Darl is one of the younger Vanguard: the attack on Meridian had been his first battle. He'd done well enough to be named to her men, but he's still green. "Klint," she says icily, "Petra will need to be warned of the danger. I'm trusting you to inform Freeheap."

She takes oily satisfaction in his widening eyes, the snarl he cuts off. Freeheap is in the opposite direction. There will be no glory for him today. She waits, but he doesn't challenge. "Dismissed!"

Erend follows her into the barracks, muttering just loudly enough for her to hear that Klint has it coming, Tyr's a bastard, both of their mothers were probably whores, too, anyway, so screw them — "Don't undermine me like that again," she says when they're alone.

Erend stops insulting the Vanguard in an attempt to cheer her up. "I wasn't undermining you! I was sticking up for you. Fire and spit, Ersa, they've been complaining lately but I didn't think they'd go that far."

And they weren't wrong, which is the worst part. Erend had put it too nicely. Of course she hated standing around court, acting as Avad's bodyguard. But it was also true that she'd been spending most of her free time with him. It was true that she was fucking him.

What can she say in her own defense? _I don't meant to seem like I'm a fake Carja, I just am in love with one?_ In love. She's still angry enough at Avad, that — that _passive weakling_ — that she's only angrier when she thinks it.

"When you rush to my defense, it makes them think I'm just a woman who needs her brother to protect her," she says. In her cell, the room she hasn't slept in in weeks, because she'd been so busy _sucking Carja cock_ , she straps on her arm guards, swaps her lighter boots for the high steel ones, attaches pockets and removes the pike from its hook.

"I know you're not — you don't," Erend says, hurt, "but I can't just say _nothing_ when they say shit like that."

She pulls off her necklace, holding the charm in her closed fist so Erend doesn't see, and pushes it into a drawer. "You spoke well, about the head bashing," she reassures him. He scoffs. "You need more confidence," she says. "I need a second, not a baby brother."

They go to Erend's rooms, and he dresses, it taking longer than Ersa as he'd been in off-duty slacks and overshirt. When they return to the courtyard, the others in the group are assembled and waiting. Klint and his cohorts have cleared out, a few — mostly the ones who didn't laugh — suddenly practicing at arms, eager to show their diligence. Ersa ignores them.

"They have a four day lead on us," she says. The floor of the training yard is packed dirt, so she crouches and draws her long dagger, scratching a crude map into the red earth. Meridian, the lake and rivers, open triangles for mountains and canyons, Pitchcliff to the northeast and Sunfall to the northwest. "We won't intercept them in Pitchcliff. We'll go straight north, through the canyons, then east. Ambush them on their way back."

"What if we miss them?" Huld asks.

"Then we chase them into Sunfall if we have to," Ersa says. "No Oseram will die in the Sun-Ring ever again."

"Hell yeah!" Erend cheers loyally. Other Erend and Darl smile, but the air is tense, thick and sour.

"Let's move," she says, standing and rubbing her foot over the map to remove it from the dirt. "We're late as it is."

Marad is waiting patiently for Ersa and her Vanguard on the bridge, his hands behind his back and a slight smile on his face. She almost wants to barrel past him, ignore that he's clearly waiting for her, but she slows at the last moment.

"His Radiance wishes to know when you will return to him," Marad asks, heavy with subtext: Avad has given in already, folded like tin, wants her to know he is waiting. But she's still angry: angrier than before, thanks to Klint. It's the wrong thing to ask her.

"The Vanguard will return to Meridian when the Carja's raids on our people have stopped for good," she says, lifting her chin.

"Hear, hear," Erend chimes in.

"I will tell him so," Marad says, giving her a look heavy with subtext: subtext Ersa doesn't bother trying to interpret, because she is leading her men out of Meridian.


	23. two. (we were battling to win)

She'd only taken her eyes from Helis for a second, but that was enough. Some men grow slow with size, but not Jiran's guard. One blow. One blow and her shoulder was yanked from its rest. There's no pain — it's too fast — just a popping snap and her arm limp and useless, her grip on the practice sword lost.

Ersa is dimly aware of Avad calling out in protest, but it's all instinct pounding through her now: Helis is already preparing to strike her again, his mouth twisted in a sneer. No time to think. She picks up the sword in her left hand as she darts away, to the side, raising it up. This is bad.

But it could be worse. Naturally, Ersa fights right handed, eats and writes and leads right handed. But as a child, she'd favored her left: the sword doesn't feel _so_ clumsy there, and her reflexes on her left are good. She's on guard now. Stupid. By the forge, it was stupid to let down her guard. Pain is radiating through her shoulder to her ribs, but she has no time to think about it.

Helis waits for her to raise her sword. One handed, her grip is weakened. She isn't sure how to block him; has no time to consider. It wouldn't have mattered: his thrust is simple, telegraphed, snaps through her guard like paper.

He's _machine_ strong. Worse. The blow strikes her other shoulder, and then there's no more sparring: he raises. A blow. Strike. One armed, no armor, there's nothing Ersa can do. Had he steel, she would be long killed. She tries to regain her guard, but with one arm, it's less a fight than a beating. She still tries, tries to stand her ground, until he knocks her head and she falls.

She doesn't lose consciousness — except that she's on her knees with no memory of falling, dark flowers blooming in her vision, overtaking her sight, an instant pounding and blood in her mouth. Knees. On her knees. She struggles to stand but braces with the wrong arm, no time, _faster_ —

"Enough!"

"You shame the Sun-King with your indulgence of this _thing_."

"You will not harm her."

"You have no authority over me, boy."

The ground is bucking beneath her, swaying. She is on the deck of a boat? On the lake again, or has she been this whole time? Flowers bloom black and blinding white. Her feet. To her feet. "Do you not serve the Radiant Line?"

Shadows in front of her. Moving. Raise your sword. She's on her feet, but the boat is swaying so heavily that she isn't sure how long she can balance. No: she's lying in the dirt, her legs folded under her. _I serve the Sun._ — _I am his son. Or do you doubt my blood?_

_If this girl is in your company again, defiling the King, I will kill her myself._

She must stand.

There are arms around her, and voices. Helping her walk. Someone tries to take her sword away — Arnhen. Her vision is clearing, one eye blurry. It hurts. The pain hits her in waves and waves. Arnhen speaks, something like "please let go," but her heart picks up in fear. No! She needs a weapon! No!

"Don't be afraid," Avad says. He has his arm around her, for support: it's hard to stand. Her knee is pounding. Almost everything is.

"I'm not," she mutters, her voice mushy. Spits — it's half drool — a mouthful of blood. She leans against the prince and releases the practice sword to Arhnen's care.

It's a relief to be out of the bright sun; the light giving her a headache, adding to the pounding. The halls are cooler, and she walks, letting the prince lead her. Every step: a sharp stab. A throb. Her right arm limp, her eye swelling shut.

Hours later, she thinks, he lets her down onto a bed. His arm slips out from under hers, from around her back. A relief where it had pushed against her shoulder and bones. Also a loss. She lies back obediently.

She knows this smell. The smell of the room, the bed: it's hers. They're in the slave's quarters. "Send for the Healer Alard. And water," Avad says to someone. Arnhen? All she remembers is Avad, bringing her here. A moment later he sits on the bed at her waist. Something wet, far too wet, slides onto her face. He's trying to help, cleaning blood, but hadn't wrung out the rag.

"It's fine," she mutters. It's not. Lying still, the pain localizes, establishes itself: her shoulder, her head and left eye, her chest, left arm, left elbow, a sting in both knees, a sting in her jaw. A sticky wetness on the side of her face that Avad is doing a poor job of cleaning away. The pain feels like beacons, Watcher lights, radiating through to the rest of her body. Her head — it's fuzzy. But growing more clear.

It had felt like hours, but had probably just been seconds. Had it been hours…

"I…" Avad says. Trails off. She thinks he means to apologize, but thinking about that, all of that, is too much right now. She keeps her eyes shut, the blurriness bothering her, the light bothering her. The prince stays at her side.

The healer hurries in with medicinal herbs and clean cloth. He's an older man, dark, wizened skinned, but kind eyes for a Carja. He sits her up and tends to her with firm hands: washing the bleeding wound on her scalp, which is not deep but is messy, and applying a wrap of herbs to keep the swelling from spreading, another for her eye, the other marks on her body, blooming into bruises, red and purple marks on her left arm and ribs.

He snaps her dislocated shoulder into place: Ersa braces herself for the pain, isn't prepared for the endless burning sharpness as he pushes and moves and _doesn't he know he's making it worse_ — and then her shoulder is back and the pain immediately lessens. Her collarbone is fractured, as well, near the shoulder. More poultices. Herbs for the pain. Avad, made useless, stirs her medicine at the healer's instructions: honey, herbs, powders from a pouch and strong maize alcohol, to fight the pain and disease of the blood.

"You need rest," the healer says, when his work is done and Ersa is resting bandaged and aching, exhausted and still throbbing with pain. "Do not use your arm or lift heavy items for a moon's turn." To his credit, even the healer looks ashamed by his advice: how exactly is a slave supposed to take it easy? "I'll leave you with herbs. Mix a pinch in water thrice daily until they're depleted," he says, indicating the size with his fingers.

Until now he's done a good job ignoring the prince the barracks, but takes his leave with a bow and "your radiance" and a look even Ersa, lying down, doesn't miss.

Avad is helplessly out of place here.

It feels like it's been a day and a night, but it must still only be midmorning. Morning. How could it still be morning? But were it later, there would be other people in the barracks besides them. Thinking makes her head pound worse. The poultice on her forehead smells faintly of the honey the slurry is made of. It's been a long time since she smelled something sweet.

"You must drink your medicine," Avad says gently, as she starts to drift off. She feels the thin mattress dip under his weight.

"I will," she says. But the effort of lifting the cup… even if it will help her… as her adrenaline ebbs with the majority of the pain, she just wants to sleep. Her head is still pounding.

A hand touches her face, her uninjured side. Fingers curl around her jaw, a thumb stroking her cheek. She leans against it, sighs.

"This is my fault," Avad murmurs. "Please forgive me."

"You weren't the one with the sword," she says.

"I knew I would endanger you by associating with you," he says. "I knew my father wouldn't approve, and thought I could deflect his anger. It's not safe for you here."

"That's not new," Ersa says. She opens her eye, the one not swollen shut. "I'm a captive. A slave."

"You're right," Avad says. He draws his hand away from her. "This is my fault," he says again.

"You're not the one who captured me," she says.

He looks at her from her bedside, his eyes dark and solemn, a lock of hair falling over his eyebrow. Serious and grave, he looks older. He's older than her by a year or two, but she usually thinks of him as young. Naive. Stop looking sad, it makes me feel guilty. I…

His dark eyes. He looks away. "Please rest," he says. "Don't worry about anything. I'll take care of you."

"The day I need you to take after me," she mutters, allowing her eyes to close again. He chuckles, and she feels the ghost of his touch on her skin.

Ersa dozes. She doesn't truly sleep, but she's drained of all her energy, the pain pounding and pounding with each pulse. It's lesser now, she's growing used to it: but still. Each heartbeat causes another ache, and no stamina remains to fight it. She is aware of Avad, too. His weight on the mattress, the imagined warmth of his body… she peeks at him, and he's sitting, arms on knees, hands clasped between his legs, deep in thought. Frowning at his hands. Strangely fascinated by his expression, she forces herself to close her eyes.

She hears footsteps, two pairs, heavy boots and a softer padding, a moment before they enter the room and Aya squeaks. This isn't the first time her friend has come in to find Ersa bedridden. "I've fetched the woman you requested," says Arnhen.

"Thank you. You're Aya, aren't you?" Avad says gently.

No reply. Ersa opens her eyes, turns her head, struggling to wrest herself upright on her left arm. Arnhen has gone; Aya is standing frozen in the doorway, her eyes wide and face pale. Mouth agape, hands raised before her chest.

It's actually pretty funny, but Ersa coughs and then wheezes when the laugh comes, the pain roiling up in her. Aya whimpers. "It's fine," Ersa gasps out. It's not. That hurt a lot, a pinch and a tear in her lungs. "Relax."

Small wonder, with all her sighing about the radiant sun, Aya would be dumbstruck in the presence of the prince. "Ersa has told me much of you," Avad says kindly. "Please, don't be afraid."

"I - I would not fear — _your grace, my prince_ ," Aya stammers out at last, one great rush of words in one great breath. Frightened but obedient, she joins them at Ersa's bed, where her sympathy takes over. "What happened?" she asks, brushing Ersa's hair from her forehead, clutching her left hand.

"Lost a fight," Ersa says, pulling her hand free from Aya, not wanting to be fussed and petted.

"Please, look after her on my behalf," Avad says. "I have to go, but I'll have food sent. If you need anything else, I'll send word that it is to be provided. You won't have to do your regular work," he adds thoughtfully.

"Thank you, your radiance," Aya mumbles, blushing at her lap.

"You're leaving?" Ersa asks, struggling to sit up higher.

"Get all the rest you can," Avad says, his smile entirely outside of his eyes.

Aya relaxes as soon as the prince is gone, although Ersa frowns after him. Just for a moment: her head and everything else still, ache, and she collapses back onto the pillow. "What happened? Why was the prince here? When that guard sent for me, I didn't know what was happening," Aya says in a nervous rush.

"Training accident," Ersa says after a moment's consideration. A lie, but not a big one. And if Avad wasn't just being melodramatic about a danger to her… she doesn't want Aya to worry.

"You're beaten badly," Aya says.

"It could have been much worse," she admits grimly. The _strength_ of Helis. The speed. She'd been absolutely helpless. Had she not been caught off-guard, two handed… had she had armor… grimly, she has to admit to herself that she's not sure even that would have helped. "I'm fine, really. Everything just hurts."

"You should drink this," Aya says, having picked up and sniffed her medicine. Ersa obeys, taking it with her left hand and wincing at the first sip: honey and bitter herbs and _strong_ alcohol. If it doesn't cure her, at least she can pass out after. Aya watches her. "What's been going on with you lately?" she asks finally.

"What do you mean?" Ersa asks, although it's obvious enough.

Aya bites her lip. "You said you hated the prince."

"I know," Ersa admits, without elaborating. She doesn't know how to explain it, either. She… doesn't hate him. But what does she feel? He's not bad. He's not bad for a Carja, the same way Aya isn't bad for a Carja, the way Aya isn't bad for a Carja. He's…

In the alley in Sunfall, for a moment, she'd almost…

"Does this have anything to do with you asking about earning your freedom, the other day?" Aya asks.

It startles Ersa. Yes. Exactly. But she hadn't figured on Aya figuring it _out_. "I was — I just was asking if _you_ wanted to work elsewhere, if you could," she says, unable to think of a lie in her somewhat foggy state.

Aya gives her a searching look, and Ersa has to look away. Takes another sip of her medicine, the alcohol loosening her tongue. "Okay, I'm planning on leaving," she says.

"That's dangerous!" Aya says in a fierce whisper, her eyes widening even though she'd already guessed. "Ersa, you'll be _killed_. The escape of a servant counts as stealing from the Sun-King, and the punishment for theft is death!"

"I don't care!" Ersa isn't sure why, but she whispers back, pushing herself back upright. "I'm not some captive, I won't — you don't understand."

"I've been indentured most of my life," Aya says primly. "They treat us so well here! I thought you liked it here," she adds, now wounded.

"Of course not," Ersa says with a sigh. She rubs her forehead with her good hand, testing at the edges of the cloth holding her poultice in place. "I like you and the others. But it's _captivity._ " She doesn't know how to explain it. Doesn't Aya get it? The way her skin crawls, the weight of her cuff on her arm, the lack of choice, lack of _progress_? It isn't as though the work is hard, the food is terrible. They're not beaten like the slaves she saw in Sunfall and Blazon Arch. But she has no _choice_ , no options. She'd cut her hair and sworn off her family and future to keep her freedom at fourteen. How can she lay back now and take it?

"Come with me," she says.

"What?"

"Leave Meridian with me. The Claim is great, everyone is much friendlier, you'd like it there," Ersa says. She's already imagining it: okay, they'll think she's kind of fussy back home. Not a lot of love for Carja. But Aya's so sweet, so harmless; they'll relax. She's about Erend's age, and Ersa immediately falls into a daydream where somehow they get married and Aya becomes a fat wife and Erend settles himself down…

Aya shakes her head for a few seconds before she can even get the words out. "No. I couldn't. No, no."

"It wouldn't be bad. I'd protect you." If she asks Avad, he'll let her bring Aya, won't he? Jaya and Ghada, it's different. Ersa likes them, but they're so Carja. Obsessed with men and luxury. Aya's different.

"I could be killed! And Oseram are all wild savage…" Aya claps her mouth shut, but Ersa feels the slap of hurt all the same. "Not you," Aya murmurs.

"It's fine," Ersa lies. Hadn't Aya always been kind to her? It doesn't mean anything. But it stings.

"You won't be leaving for anywhere anytime soon," Aya says after an awkward silence. "Not now. You should rest up. I'll get you some cool water and change your poultices."

That just fills Ersa with a new sting, one she hadn't considered. The solstice is only two weeks away. It'll be a long walk to the Claim with an arm in a sling.

 _You're not safe here_ , Avad had said. She'd be less safe on the road alone and unable to defend herself. Did this mean her escape is over? The plan canceled? The sting turns into a full bubble of fear, and Ersa downs the rest of her medicine, for the alcohol more than the relief of pain. It can't be. It's not over.

She had no intention of this plan from the start, relying on the prince to get her out during the festival. No. At first, Ersa had planned on waiting until she had a chance, killing anyone it took to get her out of Meridian. She can go back to that plan. She doesn't need to rely on the prince. If he tells her she's trapped here…

She doesn't need him to leave Meridian.

 

 

 

 

 

Helis's beating had been bad, but swift, and not Ersa's first. After three days of rest, the Healer Alard returns and removes the packs from her collarbone and forehead. She's covered in nasty bruises, her swollen eye according to Ghada an ugly purple-blue, but he allows her to remove the sling from her right arm with the instruction not to exert herself, to not lift anything heavy, and the reminder that her bones are still broken.

Jaya comes to her that evening to tell her that she spoke with Yna, and Ersa can fill in with the other Stitchers until she has her arm fully back. "I'm not a Stitcher," she points out. After three days tightly bound, her skin feels clammy to the touch, and she keeps rubbing her fingers over it, prodding lightly for pain, unable to prevent herself.

"You can sew, can't you?"

"I can mend tears," Ersa corrects. Not embroider, work with silks and fine cloth like Jaya and the other women do. More like fix gaping holes in a shirt with a line of heavy stitching.

"Really, it's better than I would have expected from you," Jaya says dryly. That morning, she's given laundry to mend: torn knees, worn undergarments, clothing belonging to only the lowliest guards in the palace. Ersa's capable, but not capable of doing it very _well_. The work is dull, and she pokes herself repeatedly with her needle.

The eighth time, Jaya catches her with her finger in her mouth. "It's because my shoulder is stiff," Ersa says, which is a blatant lie.

"If you hold it like so," Jaya sighs, putting down the beautiful flowered border she's sewing onto one of the Queen Consort's dresses, and shows Ersa how to arrange trousers so she doesn't keep poking herself blindly.

People in the Claim aren't near as fussy as Carja, but women like pretty clothing no matter their tribe. Jaya could find work as a Stitcher in Oseram lands. She's pretty and has a teasing sense of humor that would fit in well; it's easy to imagine her flirting with Oseram soldiers instead of Carja. But Ersa doesn't find herself urged to ask her to escape with her the way she had Aya.

She had asked Aya for a third time, but Aya had once again refused to leave the palace with her. Ersa doesn't know what else to do. Maybe there is a difference between Carja and Oseram, deep down.

"I wouldn't have expected you to be so clumsy with your hands," Jaya says later, on their way to the mess for the afternoon meal.

"I said it's because of my shoulder," Ersa grumbles. "I have a broken bone."

"Ersa," says Arnhen. She hadn't noticed at first, due to the crowds heading into the mess for lunch, but Avad's guard is standing outside, waiting for her. By now, people hardly pay attention to her being summoned away. Ersa grimaces only because she's hungry.

"See you this afternoon," Jaya says with amusement.

Hopefully Avad has lunch for her. Ersa follows Arnhen the now familiar route through the palace, taking the turn that will lead them to Avad's apartments instead of the training yard.

Then Arnhen takes another turn. Ersa recognizes where they are, although she doesn't know why: the terraces, the gardens and pathways ringing the upper levels of the palace.

It feels like so long since she's the last time she's been here. A few months at least. The gardens are narrow pathways lined with flowers and small trees, ornamental plants that serve no real purpose, mosaics and patterns on the ground below. And, as ever, deserted. The gardens are the Sun-King's, and as he doesn't favor them, no one visits but the slaves tasked to keep them in order.

Arnhen points her down the path at a bend and stays behind, at attention. Ersa glances back, sees he's turned around, his back to her… and towards anyone who might come this way. Ahead of her is Avad, sitting on the low wall dividing garden from path.

The tree he sits beneath is still in bloom, its long graceful branches dripping with small golden flowers like chains. The blue mosaic under its roots still chipped.

This is where they first met, this spot. This tree, because Ersa liked the flowers, loves the cheerful yellow and the way the branches swayed and dropped over her like a willow's. Because she'd been hiding here, lazy, pointlessly, the day the Queen Consort had miscarried and instead had run into the princes of Meridian.

Here.

Her heart pounds with the first inkling that something is wrong.

Avad stands when he sees her coming. "How is your arm?" he asks.

"Sore." She finds herself going closed-mouthed and wary. The odds that this is an accidental meeting place are… nothing. It's not. She knows enough to be sure of it. And in not knowing why, she's quiet again, edgy like she used to be.

"And your collar?" Avad asks, looking with focus at the purple bruise lingering above and around her eye. His arm stretches out as if he thinks of touching it, and then changes his mind.

"Sore," she says again. It's broken, won't heal for another month at least. She has enough willow to mix into her water, take the edge off at night. The pain isn't too bad, but it still hurts. She approaches Avad more closely, brushing past a frond of the yellow tree. "Why are we here?"

"You have a flower…" he says instead, vaguely. Takes one of the golden flowers from the shoulder of her overshirt. She catches his hand, not liking that he isn't answering her question.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asks. Lets go of his palm. He presses the flower, absent, into her hand. Not looking her in the eye, avoiding the topic…

Something has happened. Something bad has happened. He doesn't want to tell her because it's bad news. _Erend_ , she thinks immediately. Wildly. Her second thought is Aya. Aya told someone, Aya's been punished, he feels guilty because Aya is dead. It's like a stone dropping in her gut.

"Father asked Helis if you were dead this morning," Avad says instead. Ersa's mouth goes dry. "It's no longer safe for you in Meridian. You must leave today."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh i have been looking forward to this part of the story!! sorry it's been a while between updates; i started writing a [new fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969240/chapters/34690937) which i self plug here because it's the trashy ersa lives au all of you still reading this KNEW i would someday write, lmao.


	24. two. (take it in your heart now)

Today. _You must leave today._

The world is in a haze, now. She can't feel her body, even think for a moment. There's only the scent of the golden flowers, Avad standing before her. Six, seven, eight months. The better part of a year. And now: today. _You must leave today._

Something shifts, snaps into place. "Okay."

How? There's only one way out of the palace. She'll have to fight her way out. The bridge is guarded, and a fight would only draw more. Take a hostage. Take Avad hostage. It's been months since she last made these plans. Her mind is slow to leap into the planning. Take Avad hostage. She might have to hurt him a bit, but if she's careful — explains to him —

"Come with me," Avad says, brushing through the branches of the tree. The flowers have a strong, sweet smell. Almost too much, in the heat of the day. Ersa follows the prince.

"Marad didn't want to help," Avad is saying. His voice is tense, shoulders stiff. For the first time Ersa really notices what he's wearing: the Carja silks and knotted shirt of his traveling clothes. A sword at his side.

"Marad?" What is the Sun King's advisor doing in this conversation? This situation?

"Yes. He said it was a _pity_ , this situation, but there was nothing that could be done." She's never heard such anger in Avad's voice — cold and controlled anger, but seething. "I told him that I didn't care about his plans. Your life is more important to me."

Her heart thuds, but Ersa is much too taken aback by the other hinted information — the King's rumored spymaster, Avad, plans. She follows Avad as he leads them deeper into and through the gardens, taking a long route around the palace.

"You need to explain what's going on," she manages.

Avad looks back at her, a pace or two behind. He runs his hand over his mouth, his eyes dark. "Of course." When they begin to walk again, it is side by side.

"There used to be a passage out of the palace," he explains. "My brother and I called it the 'secret entrance,' but it was never much of a secret. We used to use it to visit the city. Five years ago or so —" Avad waves a hand vaguely. "My brother had a lover, in the Hunter's Lodge. When my father found out, he had the passage closed and began to keep us more closely in his sight."

"He didn't approve of your brother's lover?" The Hunter's Lodge is all men, Ersa knows that much. But she didn't know the Carja were against that sort of thing. Back in the Claim, Carja men have a reputation for being soft and feminine; she's always assumed there was more of it in Meridian, not less.

"My father thought it was a pretext to make allies in the Hunter's Lodge and turn them against him."

"He's paranoid," Ersa mutters.

"He's not wrong to be," Avad says darkly. "We _were_ looking for allies among the Hunter's Lodge. My father's sacrifices are making the Derangement worse, not better, and he's terrified everyone else has noticed the Sun ignores his pleas. He fears a coup and seeks to grow his power through fear and more violence."

Avad's tone, his words, cause Ersa to physically stumble, looking so intently up at his face. Her stomach twisting into knotted cord. She'd — _suspected_ , yes. _Thought_ , maybe, Avad was somewhat… less than loyal. But these were things she had believed about Jiran, and she'd warned herself not to read too deeply into it. There's no misreading this. This is —

"And Marad?" she asks, her voice coming out quiet and weak as she struggles to take this all in. Why? Why is he telling her?

"He'd rather have you killed than risk his plans," Avad says, the dark anger in his voice again.

"He doesn't want to risk _you_ ," Ersa says. Guesses, really, but it feels right as soon as she says it. She remembers the two times she's seen the king's advisor before now. Both times, he had been leaving Avad's apartments. Why? Why had he spoken to her? For the first time, Ersa wonders, but it's too late now for speculation. She has a cold feeling in her. Like misjudging the depth of water when taking a step in the river, plunging in up to her neck. Icy water piercing to the bone.

"No," Avad agrees. "Which is why he's now helping us."

Having circled halfway around the palace, Avad leads them inside. The conversation stops, but Ersa has a lot to think about as they keep walking. It is late morning, and the palace is busy: court held in the public halls, stewards and ministers and the Sun King taking meetings and running the kingdom. Servants cooking and cleaning the private apartments, empty rooms. The palace has two spires: one is largely made up of the royal apartments, and the other of banquet halls and the throne room. Underneath is the warren of offices and apartments for lesser members of the court, and under them are the servant's quarters. With so many layers, there are passages and multiple routes to any location. Ersa knows her way around, but Avad has grown up here, and leads them confidently deeper into the palace, below the offices, the ministries, below the servant's quarters and the storerooms, to…

"No," Ersa says, when she realizes. "You can't be serious."

Avad turns and, despite the tension, grins at her expression.

The Great Aqueduct connects the Daybrink's waters to Meridian, first through an artificial river on land and then over a series of bridges diverting the river directly into the city, cutting through the mesa the palace is built onto so that the Sun-King can have the freshest of the Daybrink's waters, accessed through cisterns connecting directly to the palace.

"The whole time?" she says weakly, gaining heat as she speaks. "I worked here, pulling your bath water, and the whole time I was working at your stupid _secret entrance?_ "

"It isn't your fault you didn't realize," Avad says gently, still looking rather more amused than she likes. They circle down the steps that ring the well together, the ones she climbed up and down multiple times a day for months.

"No," she says again. "No, this isn't fair. I spent months planning how to kill my way out, and the _whole time_ —"

"Kill your way out?" he echoes. Ersa barely hears him. The whole time! She'd never explored the Aqueduct, she'd only ever gone far enough to peer out over the edge. A sheer drop. A long, sheer drop. She wasn't afraid of heights, not normally, but that — it had made her stomach turn. There was a brick pathway along the edge of the river, but it was often damp. Just slippery enough. No thanks. The whole time! Had she just looked around! Were there tunnels? A hidden door? She'd been so busy pretending to be a gardener, avoiding work out of — of pride, spite, _I'm not a slave, you can't make me_ , feeling so proud of her shirking, and the whole! Time!

"Who's there?" a voice rings out. They freeze at the bottom of the well, Ersa immediately pulled out of her anger at the situation.

It's Tern.

Tern. The overseerer of the Aqueduct, who had directed Ersa for months. He was supposed to haul water too, patrol and supervise the slaves under his command. But he's sitting on a low stool, leaning against the damp wall. He clambers to his feet, eyes narrowing. Ersa steps in front of Avad: here, he's the one out of place.

"Ersa," Tern says, recognizing her. "What are you doing here? The prince's whore don't pull water anymore."

Avad coughs, and she spares him half a second's thought: really? Had he really never heard the rumors? "It doesn't matter what we're doing here," she tells Tern.

"Like hell. I run this place and I won't get killed for letting shit go on I'm not meant to," Tern says, his hand dropping to the thin wooden club he has in his belt. An overseer's weapon, to keep slaves in line, although she's never seen him use it.

Ersa considers. Tern is a middle aged Carja, sinewy and aged by years of labor as most of the servants are. Slaves, she corrects. He wears the same band she does, although Tern's is rusted and greenish from age. Avad has a sword. A real one. She could kill Tern if Avad won't, but —

"We're escaping," she says. Tern's eyes widen. "There's a way out through the Aqueduct. Come with us, you won't have a better chance."

"And what makes you think I want to get out of here?" Tern says, already turning his head to look through the passage behind him.

"Because you're a slave."

Tern chuckles. "And if I say no? If I decide to report you to the guards?"

"The Sun-King will reward you, but I will ensure you are not," Avad says, speaking up for the first time. His voice is formal, and Tern seems to notice him for the first time. Glances up and down, his eyes widening in recognition. He swears under his breath.

If the Sun-King finds out about this, Ersa will be killed and Avad will surely be punished. Tern would probably be rewarded well, but Ersa sees the man calculate it in his head: if it's worth pitting the king against his son. She lets him think, easing her way to Avad's right side, to take his sword from him if necessary.

Then: sounds from above them. The clattering of steel echoes and amplifies down the well. It can only be Carja guards. Guards in armor. They need to move, but there's nowhere to go: down the passage? The Aqueduct? Ersa doesn't know where this secret entrance is, how far away or difficult. Avad is frozen anyway; this was not part of the plan.

And she doesn't want to run. She pulls him away from the bottom of the stairs just as the men come into view: two Carja. Not guards.

Kestrels.

Something has gone wrong.

"Surrender yourselves," the taller of the two says. "You are charged with treason and escape."

Both men are taller than Ersa by more than a head; taller and heavier than herself, Avad, and Tern, possibly all three together. They are armored in black machine plates and armed with the large, ornate battle-axes favored by the Sun-King's Kestrels. Ersa has Avad's sword.

She bites back a smile.

"I am not subject to the Sun-King's laws, or your demands," Avad says, stepping in front of Ersa: she's aware of Tern somewhere behind her, in the tunnel. She doubts he'll join the fight.

"You stand charged with treason and theft of the Sun-King Jiran's property."

"The Sun-King, my father?" If Avad is scared, he isn't showing it: he steps forward angrily. Ersa swears to herself, careful to keep her face blank, her eyes downcast. She hopes she looks demure.

"You are not his true son," the second Kestrel says.

Avad straightens further and looks him in the eye. "Is that so?" Something passes between the three men: one of the Kestrels looks almost abashed under his mask. Takes half a step back. There's something she's missing, but Ersa takes the small chance she has:

One step, she reaches for Avad's sword. Yanks it free from the scabbard at his hip, knocks him in the process. She doesn't care. Transfers the blade into her right arm, still injured and stiff, but no time to think of that:

The Sun Ring. Six Kestrels.

She has a blade in her hands.

The first slash catches the guards unawares, they see her moving and knocking Avad and begin to react but not quickly enough. Kestrel armor is all plates and bands and plenty of exposed skin; she slashes up, striking him on the downward swing, right side: _there_. Just below the ribs. _Carja armor_. It's not enough but it sends the men, crowded at the base of the stairs, against one another: she feels herself grin.

The well is round, perhaps twice as long as she is lying down. Three at most. There is no space to fight with a battle-axe. The first Kestrel, the injured one, raises his, using it as a shield and rushing her, trying to create space: Ersa darts back, her feet splashing in the water. He shifts his grip to attack and she pushes in again. _Now_. His stomach splits open and red, and she darts to his side, taking care to leave the wall close to her back. He roars in pain and anger and strikes — clumsy! No room! A hit will certainly still kill her but with his arm raised the underside is exposed. _Cut. Parry. Thrust._

There are no positions or grandstanding or stubbornly holding to proper form: her sword cleaves into the soft flesh under his arm and he doubles reflexively. She raises the sword, the narrow sword the Carja favor, jewels glittering at the hilt, and drives the blade into the Kestrel's jaw.

The other man rushes at her with his companion fallen. She pulls the sword out with a sick scraping wetness, but with one less Kestrel there's now more room for the other's axe. He swings. She dodges. He's slow, but a single swipe would be enough: she skitters back across the well. The stairs. Higher ground. Keeping her back to the wall, she tries to move around him, but he sees and blocks her escape. She stabs at him and he dodges, but he is armored and her attempts are weak. They circle one another, Ersa out of his reach, unable to come into her range without first entering his.

He's panting, licks his lip. Smirks at her. She's unaware of her own breathing, any pain, where anyone else is or has gone. All she sees is him, this Kestrel. She won't catch him off guard again. He has his back to the stairs. She needs to get there. Nothing to do but risk it. Moving quick in hopes he's unprepared, she darts at him. He swings that axe and she feels the wind from it, a scraping pain: no time to think. Slash. Strike. Hits his armor, he twists and so does she, retreating back. Her back to the curve of the stairs. He's in the entrance to the tunnels, blocking it with his whole body. Plenty of room now. He begins to rush her and she pushes him back, her feet slipping on the wet brick. She almost falls — her whole body goes white and blinding with fear —

A thud, a metallic crash, a splash. She twists herself back to her feet and the Kestrel is on his knees. Fallen?

Tern is standing behind the guard, his club in his hand, a savage grin twisting his face.

Ersa feels herself grin and finishes off the Kestrel before he can recover from the blow to his neck. The water they're standing in is growing murky with blood.

"Thank you," she says. Tern spits on the Kestrel's corpse.

Her heart is pounding through her entire body. The pain begins to hit her: her right arm, swelling rapidly, her shoulder and collar still on the mend. So much for taking it easy. Her left arm is bloody from some near miss, but when she rubs at it it's not deep: the axe had scraped away her skin but not penetrated. There's no time.

"Are you -" Avad looks horrified and thunderstruck in turns, re-entering the room. The only one unarmed, he'd had the sense to stay out of the way: she's worried he's squeamish now, or worse, disapproves of the fighting. She can't face his disapproval. She hasn't the time for it. Watches him survey the scene, the bloodied bodies in the water. His face hardens. "We need to get rid of them."

Not what she'd quite expected. Ersa nods. Tern swears to himself. "And how do we do that?" he mutters. "She just killed two Kestrels."

He's not entirely wrong. They're alone for now, but… "The Aqueduct," Avad says. "Help me move them," he adds to Tern. Ersa's glad for it; her shoulder is starting to pound with pain. She wets her hand in the murky water, tries to wipe off the blood from her arm, clean off Avad's sword.

Avad and Tern half drag the two corpses through the tunnel, to the path at the edge of the Aqueduct, where it becomes clear what Avad is planning. "There will be nothing left of them," Ersa says, warily eyeing the edge. The endless drop into the jungle below.

"Left here, they'll be found," he says grimly. "Do you have another idea?"

Ersa thinks it over. The Aqueduct runs directly underneath the bridge into Meridian in a straight line: she can see from here to the mesa's edge. The path is narrow but clean; it is patrolled carefully to remove debris from the city's main water supply. If they leave the men here, they'll be found. However…

"You were betrayed," she says. "Someone knew we'd be going this way and sent guards."

"But not a full alarm, or there would be more," Avad says, his eyes narrowing. Yes. True. The Kestrels had expected them, intercepted them, with the intention of arresting, not killing.

"Marad?" Ersa guesses.

"No," Avad says. She's not as convinced as he is, but his tone doesn't suggest arguing.

"He might send more guards," she points out. Marad makes the most sense, by far.

"No," Avad says slowly. "He wanted… to catch us. He'll check himself." Avad is clearly halfway lost in thought, frowning out into the open air.

Tern, as they speak, walks the length of the Aqueduct until he reaches the grand mesa, then turns back. "There's no way out, no way into the channel," he reports angrily. "Now what? What's next in this brilliant escape?"

"You were helping a minute ago," Ersa snaps.

"Aye, when I didn't think I'd be caught and killed for killing one of the Sun-King's damned Kestrels."

"That was me." She's not sure if she's correcting him, defending herself, or reminding him who to blame.

Tern spits. "You think the king will care about the details?"

"If he comes and sees their bodies, he'll know we progressed further this way. If he finds nothing, it will buy us time as he searches," Avad decides. "With luck, he'll think his friends decided to take the credit without him."

"Who will?" Ersa says, realizing he's figured out something she hasn't.

Avad shakes his head. "We need to get rid of them."

With effort, they heave the bodies over the side of the bridge. Ersa watches the first man fall, fall forever, feeling sick to her stomach. She is the one who killed him, but this — his limbs, heavy, falling through the air — a shaking of trees —

She swallows, hard. No time to imagine it.

Avad leads the party across the bridge, to the edge of the mesa. Tern spits "see?", but Avad doesn't approach the mesh grill separating the bridge from the underground channels, instead moving to the left side of the Aqueduct, where he reveals a pair of ropes, strung across the air, connected to a narrow ridge thirty or forty feet away.

"Those weren't there before," Tern says, sounding shaken.

The ropes are strung so a person can stand on one and hold the other for support; the simplest manner of bridge. Ersa can't help but look down again, feeling sick with vertigo. Those dangling limbs, that endless fall…

"Marad had them restored this morning," Avad says. "It's not as frightening as it looks. There's a ladder on the ridge up ahead."

This was how he used to sneak into the city? Ersa has never wanted to do anything less than climb out over nothingness, over an endless fall, crushed against rocks… for Avad to be so cool about it… she's quickly re-evaluating a lot of things about him.

"I'll go first," she says decisively, not wanting to give away her trepidation, giving Avad's sword back to him so her hands will be free.

The bottom rope is firmly tethered, and once she gets out the first few steps, her heart in her throat, her eyes firmly on the ridge, it isn't so bad. The ridge is a little wider than it had appeared from the bridge, overhung by roots and bits of rock — a good climber could probably make it free handed, but Ersa is glad to see a rope ladder dangling down. Tern stumbles his way across, and Avad follows last, cutting the ropes behind him when he's joined them on the ridge. Dangling into nothingness, tethered only by the other end, they look much more frail than before.

There's enough room on the ridge for all three of them, but only just: Ersa leans herself carefully against the rock, and so does Tern. Only Avad seems comfortable, but he's made the climb before. "The ladder leads to a terrace," he says. "It's a long climb, but we should be safe at the top."

"You first," Ersa says to Tern.

"Absolutely not," he says.

"We're stuck here, you might as well."

"I'm not climbing into an ambush."

Avad squeezes past them both and climbs first, looking a touch exasperated. He moves up the ladder quickly, and is soon just a small shape. How high up is this terrace? Ersa's heart is pounding again. When Avad is nearly out of sight, Tern begins to follow him.

Ersa lingers on the ridge, trying not to look down, into the sky around her, or anywhere in particular. She removes the stakes holding the ladder steady when Tern has disappeared from view.

Nothing left to do.

She begins to climb the ladder. It sways, but not too badly, leaning against the cliffside as it is. But her arm starts to ache worse immediately, her shoulder throbbing and tearing with every reach she makes. Ersa tries to climb one handed, left handed, but the ladder shakes and she's weak after months of captivity. She paces herself. The ladder is endless. She wanted to go last, didn't want to hit anyone should she lose her grip, fall —

Fall down, limbs spread, fall for minutes and hours, crash into the ground and explode into bits from the force, rotten fruit on stone —

Her shoulder is on fire, pulsing through her entire body. She's drenched in sweat. One more, and you can take a break. One more. One more. The sun is pounding on her neck. One more.

At last, she makes it from cliffface to the side of a building. At last, she's at the top of the ladder, a waist high wall separating a roof terrace from the drop. She heaves herself over and collapses, each heartbeat sending shooting pain through her body.

"Ersa?" She's aware of a hand joining her left at her shoulder, where she's clenching it, trying to keep the bone in place.

"It broke again," she grits out. Gentle hands help her push her shoulder, snapping it back into the socket as she tries to keep from whimpering. The pain abates slightly. Not much. She opens her eyes, leaning against the inside wall of the terrace. Avad is kneeling before her, his expression concerned. She can feel his breath. She closes her eyes for another moment, steeling herself.

"Now what?" she asks, allowing Avad to help her unsteady to her feet. He unknots the ladder, letting it fall into the nothingness — she shudders — as she looks around. It's a terraced roof of some noble home: stucco wall and floors, a sleeping rug, no other decoration but a half dead tree, shriveled and unpruned. Tern is pacing restlessly, every so often peeking over the wall's edges at the city below.

The group moves to the sleeping rugs, in the weak shade of the tree. Dead leaves clustered on the ground. There's a large basket Ersa hadn't noticed before, and Avad goes to it. "No one lives here, it should be safe to stay for a while," Avad says. "When workers begin to head home for the evening, we join them and make our way down into the village." Avad removes a bundle of clothing from the basket, and then a waterskin he passes around. Ersa drinks gratefully.

"What about you?" she asks. "How are you going to get back to the palace?"

"Over the bridge," Avad says. Seeing something in her look, he continues: "My father won't be able to prove I acted against him, and even if he suspects he will not harm his own blood."

"And what's going to stop him from saying you're a bastard?" Ersa wonders if Avad will need to leave Meridian with her, what that will mean. He's shown a new side to himself today, unhesitant and clever, but… but what? They could make it to the Claim together, with her watching out for him. But then what?

"He won't," Avad says coldly.

"That's fine for you," Tern says, "but I'm not part of this." The two look at the overseer with some surprise. "Thanks for your help, although I figure we're even," Tern continues, nodding at Ersa. She nods back. "But I'll strike out on my own from here. No offense — no offense, your grace, but I feel better about my odds away from a Sun Prince."

"I understand," Avad says with a wry smile. "Will you be alright?"

Tern shrugs. "I have family, and I won't say more than that in case you get caught later. I just have one more thing to ask, and that's for some of that cloth there."

"I'll do you one better," Ersa says, peeling off her dirty, stained, and bloody overshirt. Once again, Avad blanches and looks away, although once again, she is wearing a chemise under. She balls up the cloth and tosses it at Tern, who quickly tears it into strips and makes a pair of arm wraps — dirty, clumsily tied, but covering his slave's bangle.

They don't say goodbye, don't wish one another luck: Tern nods at them both and climbs over the edge of the roof, into Meridian.

Ersa's arm is still swollen and throbbing, so she fashions herself a bandage out of her remaining shirt, asking Avad to help her tie it in place over her shoulder and the cut on her left arm. He does, oddly embarrassed. Her mouth twitches: has he never seen a woman before? But then somehow his embarrassment embarrasses her, and so when the bandage is tied she's glad when he immediately turns away.

She rests for a time, in the noon's heat, her arm still pulsing with hot pain. Avad looks out towards the palace, deep in thought, as she dozes. Right now, her friends must be having lunch together. It's only been an hour, maybe two. How can that be? It's been days.

Her friends… sweet Aya. Jaya and Ghada. She never said goodbye. She never knew she'd need to. Had Ersa known, she would have said something, tried to say kind things to them, for them to remember later. Maybe thought of something to say they could see later was a clue. Told Aya: even if you're a Carja, you could be my little sister. Told Jaya and Ghada: You'll find love and wealth like you wish someday. Thank you for being kind to me.

Had she known.

Ersa can't let herself think about it long, can't let her thoughts get away from her. She's out of the palace, but it's still in sight. She doesn't yet feel like she's escaped; she is still in Meridian. She looks over at Avad. He sits in the sunlight in the center of the roof, head bowed, lost in thought or prayer.

When the sun begins to dip, they move again. Marad's basket contains an outfit for Ersa: not the silks or hunter's armor Avad had promised, but a peasant's skirt, blouse, and overshirt made of cheap linen. A head covering Avad has to show her how to tie on over the matted nest of her hair, and a tube of Carja makeup she has no idea what to do with.

Avad applies it for her, explaining that no self respecting Carja woman would venture out with hair uncovered or eyes unmarked. She's not about to argue now.

He leans in very close to do it, his movements practiced as he paints a dark circle around each of her eyes, looking intently into hers as he does. At hers, not into. But she stares back at him. He wears Carja makeup too, not like she hasn't noticed, the way it makes his eyes brighter and lashes look longer… But he has nice eyes, warm brown, half golden in the light… she just has muddy gray… A fine nose, too, really. Smooth. A good shape. And his mouth…

He draws away, clearing his throat. Now Ersa is the one feeling oddly embarrassed.

When she's dressed, Avad politely turning his back the entire time although she wasn't changing undergarments, they descend the way Tern had earlier, into an alley. "Follow a few steps behind me," Avad says. "Until we're in the lower city."

Carja nobility don't normally walk arm and arm with peasants. Side by side, that is.

Her pulse quickens as soon as they're in the street. It's bright and bustling, and this close to the palace there are guards and traffic both coming and going over the bridge. She must look out of place — but no. As she follows Avad, Ersa looks and sees others dressed as her. Servants doing chores, perhaps. Everyone is in a hurry. He leads her through streets and then onto a main thoroughfare, dominated by a statue of the Sun-King, bedecked with flowers and embroidered cloth. A tavern is doing rousing business already, and men loiter before it. There are guards, dozens of them, coming and going. They don't seem to be scanning the crowds in search of anyone, although by now the palace must know she and Avad are missing — or do they not? Had Avad been right? And the betrayer afraid to report his actions, his attempt to arrest them himself instead of telling the Sun-King?

Avad leads them to an avenue lined with market stalls and crowds. It's difficult to keep an eye on him with so many people — from the back, he doesn't look so different from half the Carja in the streets. Isn't he worried about being recognized? If anyone stands out, it's him and not her. But she remembers what he told her once. It's forbidden to look at his face. No one really knows what he looks like.

The crowd thickens near the Temple of the Sun, and Ersa loses him. She feels a moment of blind, pounding panic — here, alone in Meridian, where is Avad? What will she do? — before she gathers herself. She'll keep moving. She's already dressed like a Carja, she knows what to do. She doesn't need him.

But she looks for him anyway, climbing steps leading to raised apartments to get a better look at the crowds: afternoon rush, people going to and coming from the Temple, shopping at the stalls laden with artisan goods: decorative hair pieces, feathered ornaments, silk sashes…

There! She spots him at a jewelry stand not twenty feet away. With relief she doesn't want to examine rushing through her, Ersa presses her way through the crowd to Avad's side.

She pretends to browse jewelry for a moment, Avad ignoring her. "Here you are, sir," the jeweler says, handing Avad a package that he accepts sheepishly. It takes everything Ersa has not to give him a questioning look.

He brushes at her hand ever so slightly as he thanks the vendor and resumes his walk, and Ersa pretends to browse for a moment more before following. Avad looks at several of the stands, pretending to shop to give her plenty of time to catch up when they're separated: her skin starts to crawl at how _long_ it's taking. But she knows to rush, to run, would be to stand out. To put herself at risk. Them both at risk.

At last, the Great Elevators are before them. This is the hardest part.

She's heard of the elevators. The marvel, the engineering! The skill! Oseram forged and built and smelted, Carja ingenuity, all come together to make machines who transport men and women and supplies like magic up the mountain itself. It calls to her blood; she wants to admire them, watch them for hours. To step into one is like a dream; she'd spend a whole day going up and down if she could.

But the other side of the shard is rust. She can hear the voices and accents from the winches from here, the terrace: see the cave-like opening leading to the bellows and forges where dozens, hundreds of her people are kept enslaved and chained, making the elevators run smoothly and without fault. Most Oseram taken captive end up here, not the Sun Ring or the palace. Almost all. She wants to storm in and break those chains, lead them out, arm them all and lead them to revolution —

Instead, she turns away and boards an elevator with a crowd of Carja and Avad.

She doesn't enjoy the ride down as much as she thought she would. Ten Oseram had been taken from her village over the years, not counting herself, Steel, and Alin, and counting one cousin of hers. No one knew if they were alive or dead. But if they were alive, she had just been closer to them than their families had been in years.

Their families, who had buried them all in empty cairns, knowing better to hope for their lives. Ersa has an empty cairn too, she's sure. But unlike her people, she's on her way back home.

In Meridian Village, Avad waits for her to make her way through the crowd leaving the elevator. The village is surrounded by the river and the mesa, which keeps it safe from Machine attack — barring the occasional Glinthawk — but also means Ersa isn't safe yet. "Almost," he says quietly, guessing her thoughts.

"What now?" The days creep on forever in the Sundom, blessed by the Sun and all that. It's evening now, but the sun is still visible above the trees. The air here is warmer, wetter than the city above, smelling of plants and wet earth. The crowds disperse away from the elevators: There are inns and taverns and markets, but also ramshackle homes and farmlands stretching in all directions.

There's also more mingling between classes here: less men dressed as well as Avad, and those who are are socializing freely with men who must be traders or laborers. The few women Ersa sees are all dressed as her, as common folk. Are common folk, not pretending as she is. She rubs her swollen shoulder, wincing in pain.

"We get through a gate." Avad sounds confident, but she looks at him skeptically.

"And?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "You need a passbook to leave the city, and I couldn't get you one. But the gates are not always well guarded." Ersa swears to herself. "I'm sorry," he says.

 _We're mostly there,_ she tells herself. _It's not his fault. I'm further than I've been in most of a year._ It doesn't do anything to stop the anger, the frustration and nervous anxiety. _I can steal a boat. Make a run for it._

"We'll find a gate that isn't well watched and I'll run," she says.

"That's too dangerous."

"Have another idea?" Ersa snaps.

They decide whatever they try will be easier when it's dark, so for an hour or so they wander the village, side by side. Ersa is starving, but she doesn't want to risk approaching one of the taverns or food stalls and be remembered: she's not convinced Avad would be any safer.

As it gets dark, she reaches out and, with some hesitation, takes Avad's arm, wrapping her fingers around his forearm. He starts, and stops walking. "If we look like lovers on a stroll," she says, not quite meeting his eyes.

The truth is, feeling his arm under her hand helps in some way. This slow escape is biting at her, ratcheting up her anxiety bit by bit: whenever Ersa had pictured leaving Meridian, it had always been in a blaze of action. A full sprint north. Avad is solid and at her side still, much less afraid than she feels she is. It helps.

They approach the north gate at early dusk, blending in with a group of Carja heading back to their estates outside of Meridian. There are two guards and a little shelter built in to the stone arch, but the guards don't appear to be checking for passes even as they eye the Carja leaving the city.

"Will you get back inside?" Ersa asks, pulling Avad into the shade of a plantain tree. "Let's part here, I can make it the rest of the way."

"No," he says, shaking his head. "We're not out yet."

"Don't be an idiot."

"If you do get caught, it will be much safer to be caught with a prince than alone," Avad says. If she's caught, she'll be killed either way. Her fingers tighten on his arm. "I have proof of my identity with me," he says. "I can get back in."

"Fine," she says, the word feeling like a lie.

As they approach the gate, a Carja soldier exits from the guard post and calls out: "Kol! Are you checking passes?"

"Sir!" one of the guards says, standing at attention. Ersa's stomach sinks. If she hadn't pulled Avad aside just now…!

Avad pulls free of her grasp, and then takes her hand in his with a squeeze. He leads them forward, although Ersa's feet feel like lead.

"I know them," Kol is saying to the second guard, waving at the halted crowd: half a dozen Carja, an escaping slave, and the prince.

" _Passes_ ," the guard says, annoyed. "I won't get written up again."

Kol sighs. "Okay, guys." There's some muttering, passes are produced from pockets and pouches. Ersa has nothing. Avad has nothing. Her stomach is roiling, her heart in her mouth. She tugs at Avad's hand: it's time to run. He squeezes back and moves forward.

She can break free. She can get up to the guards, then run: there's no barrier, just two Carja guards glancing at passes. Once they're at the guards, she can run while Avad says something to distract them. That's his plan, she realizes. The best he can do on short notice. She can work with it. Her arms are injured, not her legs.

"Pass?" The other guard asks Avad. She breaks free of his hand, edges towards the other side of the gate, trying not to look like she is. The guard is short: shorter than her by a lot, and skinny. Young: a boy, really. Too young to be a guard, and full of bluster to combat it. It also means Ersa can overpower him if she has to.

"I forgot it," Avad says apologetically. "Is it really important?"

She takes a step to the side. The guard turns. "Stay where you are." She freezes, smiles queasily. Silly her, moving! He turns back to Avad and she inches to the side again.

"Of course it's important," the short guard says with self importance, "the passbooks are the law of Meridian, and laws must be followed, or else we fall into chaos like a bunch of savage criminals."

"I told — I told Rasha that I knew of a private spot on the other side of the river," Avad says, sounding embarrassed as he hints broadly and lies extremely well. Ersa tries not to look surprised. "She's never left the city and I had hoped for a _special_ evening…"

The short guard turns to frown at Ersa — that is, Rasha. She tries to look like an innocent maid who wants to see water lilies in the moonlight, but with the guard's eyes on her she can't help but notice…

The guard looks back to Avad, up into his eyes. An expression flashes — and the guard looks away, suddenly stricken. Ersa's heart sinks. It wasn't her that was recognized, after all.

"Proceed," the guard says, his voice higher than before.

"Hey," Kol says, "You said we had to check all the passes, Janeva."

"I said it's fine!" the guard snaps. "Just this once! Now go before I change my mind."

"Thank you, sir," Avad says smoothly, grasping Ersa's hand before she has time to react and pulling them through the gate and out of Meridian.

They hurry along the road. It's almost dark, but Ersa doesn't feel elated yet, free yet. Her heart is pounding in her throat. "That guard recognized you," she whispers fiercely. They are walking so fast they are at half a run.

"Yes, and they'll want something in return for it," Avad says, smiling. "That's good," he continues at Ersa's expression. "It will make my return to the city much easier. What's two favors instead of one?" He's smiling, but she's not feeling relieved yet.

"Wait," she says. The gate is out of sight, and the road is narrowing, giving way to jungle. Avad stops, and she pulls him into the shade of the trees, where they are not so clearly in the open.

Then she lets go of his hand. How long has she been holding…?

With his release, Avad's expression sobers. Ersa shakes her head. "You have to be careful," she says. "The guy who tried to get us arrested is still out there. You can't just trust people. And be careful about Marad, too. He helped us, but you can't trust a man who lies for a living." She searches her mind for more. "Be careful. Don't be an idiot. Make sure the servants get more food."

"This is goodbye?" he asks quietly, with a sort of smile.

She can't think of anything else to say. There are words, lots of words, down beneath her throat where she can't reach them. Ersa nods. "Yes."

"Here," he says. He unbuckles the sword from his waist, hands it and the scabbard to her. "You'll make better use of it than me."

"Thanks," Ersa says. She ties it on. There's more she wants to say, but she doesn't know what it is. "Keep practicing," she says. "You'd be a great swordsman if you just cared a little. You read too much."

He smiles crooked. "I like reading."

"If you can, get Aydala, Jaya, and Ghada to have the same day off during the solstice," Ersa says, "they'll like that." Words keep pouring out of her, but not the _right_ ones. She still doesn't know what the right ones are. The stars are coming out around them, the moon peering out over the trees. Fireflies in the grass. Birds singing all around.

Avad nods again. "I… It was an honor to have your friendship," he says gravely, leaning closer to her and then away.

"Right," she says in a rush. "You're —" _okay too_ , she means to say. It dies on her lips. _I like you too. We're friends._ None of it. It's true, but she can't say it, can't form her mouth around the words. It's true. "Thank you," she says. Half a step closer to him. Half a step away. Say something else. She doesn't know what.

"I have… one more thing," Avad says, looking embarrassed. He takes from his pouch the parcel he'd bought earlier in the day, unwraps it to reveal a small round charm. He holds it out to her in his palm, and she touches it with her fingertips; it's too dark to make it out clearly. "It's customary to begin a journey in the light of the Sun," he says quietly, "so that the Sun can guide you under his gaze. I know you don't hold that, but… for luck…" Her fingers trail down his palm and he sucks in a breath, his fingers curling. "I," he says, and doesn't finish the thought.

"Thank you," she says again, taking the necklace from him, the sun charm on silk thread. Pulls it around her neck. "I'll need luck."

"I'm not sure you do."

She smiles up at him. He leans closer to her again — and pulls back. Almost as though… Ersa's smile fades. The river trickles, the birds quiet, now replaced by singing insects. It's the water she hears. The sweet smell of night flowers.

Red dust. Yellow flowers. Pulling his hand away in the training yard. The words caught in her throat. Flowers. Thanks.

 _Oh_.

Before she can hesitate, before she can think, Ersa reaches for him and takes his face in her hands. One of his hands covers hers; he looks frightened in the near dark, inhaling and not releasing the breath. "Ersa," he says.

 _There_ are the words.

She leans in.

He doesn't breathe, doesn't move, doesn't react. For a second. And then —

 _Oh_.

He kisses back, angling his head and pulling at her and she follows, eager, licks at his lip so he opens his mouth with a gasp. This is not a farewell kiss, a thank you kiss — it goes and she leans into him, pulls at him, her hands in his hair and his thumb on her cheek —

She pulls away and he follows, leans his forehead against hers as they both gasp for breath. _Okay, he's not a complete virgin_ , she thinks, absurdly, and it makes her laugh to herself, under her breath, her whole body pounding.

When she opens her eyes, he's looking at her with an expression she's seen before and never recognized, so she kisses him again, pulling away before — chaste, this time. Clean. "Ersa," he says again, his voice caught in his throat.

Too much. Too many new things, too much in one day. She's burning with it, doesn't have time to consider these changes.

But she doesn't regret it.

"Goodbye," she says softly. He moves towards her — pulls himself away. Looks confused, hazy as she feels. Straightens his expression.

"Yes," he says. Does the thing that makes her want to kiss him a third time, which is: stands where he is, looking overwhelmed as she feels. Ersa forces herself to step away, taking a breath, focusing on the sound of the river. Oh — they're holding hands again, she can't remember when that started; his hand stretches out after hers. Her lip is swollen. "We may meet again," he says hopefully.

"I doubt it," she says with a laugh that comes out unexpectedly bitter. Sharp. Part of her is saying: stay. Linger. Do what you just did again and more. "But if you ever - you know, are in the Claim, and not to kill anyone…"

"Yes," he says, an absurd smile on his face.

Remembering home is enough to do it, to pull her mind from the internal rebellion, the desire to step closer, and pull it back towards the task at hand. It is early evening. She wants to be half a day's journey from Meridian by dawn.

She's free.

The air is sweeter, the water splashes over rocks, there is grass under her feet. The night is clear and bright and she is outside of Meridian. "Thank you," she says. "For your help."

Now his smile twists. "I was happy to do it."

"Goodbye," she says again, thinking _once more won't hurt. Just once._

"Goodbye," he says. Clearing his throat. She almost reaches for him once last time — the first time — her head pounding, her heart pounding, her shoulder still throbbing, the pain half forgotten —

_Go back to him and you might never leave._

"Goodbye," she says for a third time, the words she's thinking caught below her heart. In a borrowed dress, a prince's sword at her hip, Ersa turns and leaves Meridian behind her.

She doesn't look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHA SCREAMS.
> 
> Okay so:  
> a) GUYS, this chapter got just, absurdly long. But I didn't want to break it up and so I guess ya'll are just gonna have to deal with it?
> 
> b) Ersa and co., leave the same way Dervhal, and Aloy, later get into the palace. I really liked the idea of the route being kind of … obvious? Like, lol, the palace just happens to have a direct lane into the city underneath the bridge. Plus, there's some nice irony to Avad being like "yeah, the way I used to sneak into the city" later coming back to bite him.
> 
> c) ONLY TOOK 20+ CHAPTERS BUT FINALLY WE'RE ONTO PART THREE JESUS GUYS. Thanks so much for the comments and kudos I've gotten on this INSANELY SLOW MOVING WEIRD STORY; I hope this has been worth the wait and you liked this and all that crap. I'd love to hear what you think!!


	25. viii. (said you would never give up easy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out? insane heatwaves are really conductive to not moving at all and typing! who knew!

The Vanguard travels fast to Pitchcliff. The village is still in chaos ten days later. Ersa hasn't been to the new town before: so far, just a cluster of construction on top of a hill. A few low stone walls, cleared land, the beginnings of timber gathering; a few tents and shelters have been repaired, but the village is in ruins.

At least rain and effort have put out the fires. Ersa feels grim and sick as they approach, early in the evening, in the rain. The perimeter of the village is marked with torches and wary guards. "We came as soon as we heard," Ersa says.

"A week too late." It's Ralert — their approach was noticed, of course, and a group of Oseram guards meet them at the bottom of the hill.

"As I said," Ersa replies grimly. Two days they've been on the road, hardly resting: they made the journey in excellent time, but she's dizzy with exhaustion and knows her men must be too. No one will complain aloud if she doesn't, but Erend's been passing her significant looks every time she's ordered them back on their feet: _we need more rest_. She knows.

"I thought we were under your Sun-damned king's protection here?" Ralert says with narrowed eyes, gesturing northward. "We're in the Sundom, are we not?"

"The king can't protect what he's unaware of. No one thought the insurgency would dare continue the Red Raids," Ersa grits out. She's still angry with Avad, Avad's refusal to lift his hand against the insurgents, who _cares_ if his brother is one of them, but she can't _say_ that. And certainly not to Ralert, who she doesn't particularly like.

Ralert spits at their feet, at the king. She doesn't protest. "They were headed toward the Claim. We saw 'em across the valley, they didn't see us until their return journey."

"And you didn't try to stop them?" That's Erend, stepping forward to Ersa's right.

"Are you mad? We don't even have walls! You see what they did to us when they passed back through the valley."

"Captives?" she asks.

Ralert shakes his head. "Couldn't tell, as soon as my scouts saw them coming here they came back to warn us. Eight killed in the attack, two of them women." From the people Ersa can see — a crowd is gathering, despite the misty rain — it must have been most of Pitchcliff's female population. Not many civilians have settled here yet; it's mostly remnants of the liberation army.

"And captives?" Erend asks.

"If they had any, they got them further north. Haven't had word yet from the Claim."

Erend catches her eye, and Ersa tries to look hopeful. This might be good luck. Might. "How long ago did they leave?" she asks.

"Two days, and I hope the forge fires take every last one of those whore's sons."

They only have a lead of two days. Two days! It's harder now to fight a grim smile. The Carja had wasted their lead heading into the Claim, and might not have captives for sacrifice at all. On the other hand, that they didn't take more in Pitchcliff… either they had as many as they could manage from the north, or it wasn't a raid for sacrifice at all. Either way, a two day lead is surmountable. "Do you need hands?" Ersa asks, because she has to.

"Aye, and walls and cannon." What are the odds that another Carja raid comes in the next few days? Ersa weighs it briefly.

"We'll send word when we can," she decides. Ralert scoffs, but Ersa is already turning back to her brother and the others: all exhausted, all standing tall. She wants to offer them food and rest, and looks at each of them in turn to see if they ask. No one does. "Two days is nothing. Let's kill those bastards before they ever see their damned city again."

"Hell yeah!" Erend cheers, as always.

They make it out of the valley again by midnight; stop and rest until dawn. Longer than Ersa would like, but the terrain ahead is harsh and they'll need their speed in daylight. She's bone weary and sore, but takes first watch to prove she isn't. There are advantages to being a woman, sometimes. None of her men, not even her baby brother, want to admit they're tired when the one woman will not.

The rain clears up outside of the valley, and a warm wind picks up, clouds racing across the sky. Summer is approaching fast. She sits on a convenient rock as the men sleep around her, keeping an eye out for too-close machine lights and signs of men.

Summer… Ersa's exhausted mind drifts. It's hard to keep track of her thoughts; she thinks about the solstice nearly two years ago, the one she never saw. No, she saw it. She was still traveling back to the Claim… or had she just arrived home? Those memories are a blur; compressed into one flash of hunger and pain and excitement and joy. But when she thinks of the solstice, she thinks of Meridian. Did her friends get to enjoy it? Did they spend the day together?

She hopes they did. She wishes she could ask. How did they get wrapped together, her old friends and a Carja festival she never was able to see? She'll see it this year. Maybe.

If she's back in Meridian. It smarts, still. He'd _vowed_ , to take care of her people as his own. He'd _promised_. And the first test had come and Avad had failed it. How? After all she'd done, all she'd trusted him — his speech at his coronation. Light and peace and nothing about the Oseram.

Just how long is she supposed to trust him?

Oh, he _talked_ a lot, Avad. And she'd fallen for every damn line. _I'll love none but you for the rest of my life_ , he'd told her once. Just after sex, she doesn't forget.

It's like Dorin all over again.

Even her thoughts irritate her. She's supposed to be a soldier, not… not some _woman_. She should be angry for her people, and she is, but she's angry for herself, too. She'd spent the night with him just four days ago. The last real sleep she'd had.

Bad idea to think about sleep; she catches herself swaying and jumps to her feet to pace the camp. Two days. Two days head start. No time to think about idiots who lie to you; she paces and tries to come up with plans, more than _catch them and kill them_ , until it's time to wake Huld for second watch.

The next morning, they press on, but they're losing speed through exhaustion, and with it luck: they've been avoiding Machines to avoid slowing down, but a Watcher spots them and alerts one of its brethren… and a Sawtooth.

It slows them down, and Darl is hurt in the attack — not critically, not through cowardliness, and after, Ersa has to reconsider. Normally two Watchers and a Sawtooth would be a challenge, but not a struggle for the Vanguard. This was a struggle.

But the men — she calls for a break. Forn has some knowledge of healing, and he tends to Darl's bleeding arm and side. Huld and other Erend flop into the grass to catch some rest, and Ersa paces off anxiously. Her brother follows.

"We can't keep going like this," Erend says, when they're still in sight of the others but far enough not to be overheard.

"We have to," she snaps. Then softens. Erend's right. She runs her hands over her head. "They have sacrifices."

"We don't even know how where they are," Erend says, swiping absently at the long grass with his hand, tearing off seeds. "We're just blindly running west."

"You're saying you want to turn back?"

"No, of course not."

"But?"

Erend focuses on a sheaf of wild grass in his hands, picking delicately at it as if it's something important. Ersa looks up at the sky. The sun. It's only mid morning. She feels dizzy, filled with only a weak, watery energy. If she lies down, she'll sleep for days. Sleep… Her mind drifts. A feather mattress. Too soft and too large. Her arms reaching out, her nose and forehead pressed against his back…

She shudders, here in the sunlight. "We just … can't keep doing this," Erend says carefully. "I'm all for kicking some Carja ass, you know that, but maybe we can come up with another plan? Let's take out a fort or something. Let them know they can't hit us without taking it twice as bad."

"They have _sacrifices_!" Ersa snaps, stepping towards her brother. "They have _people_ , and they're going to throw them in the Sun Ring and kill them. And you think it'll be fast? You think they have a chance?"

"I mean — you did," Erend says, but weakly, ashamed even to say it.

"I'm not turning back!" The Sun Ring, the sand, hot on her feet, burning and stinging her wounds… it's still a dream she has, a nightmare she has. Stripped of her armor, bare, the stands full of jeering… Jiran, glittering, smirking down at her. In her dreams, his face morphing into Avad's.

"I know, I get it!" Erend says, "but if we don't slow down, _they'll_ start dying. You'll start."

"Not before you," Ersa snaps. She runs her hands over her skull again, the gesture almost soothing. He's right. She knows he is. But she's right _too_ , can't he see? Isn't that the problem? "Fine," she says. "Fine."

Erend smiles and she smiles back sourly. If he thinks it's that easy…

"We're pushed too hard," she announces to the men huddled around the Sawtooth carcass. "We need to catch the captives, but we can't let ourselves be killed in the process."

"It's my fault," Darl says. His arm is bandaged, but he's sickly pale. "I let my guard down. I've never been against a Sawtooth before —"

"Nor have I," Huld says. "Any of us would have been torn up by that thing."

"It's not your fault," Ersa says. "It's mine, for pushing us too hard."

Grumbles. They don't like hearing that from her, from a woman: the implication that _she's_ still fine and they're weak. Ersa's still irritable, it was intentional, if ill advised. Erend coughs at her right.

"I know I haven't been a good captain," she says. Now it's hard to meet their eyes, but she tries. "And I wanted to prove myself so badly here I just screwed it up worse. Erend has a good plan. " She glances at her brother; he looks surprised and immediately pleased. "There's a fort near here — Unflinching Watch. In the Furrows, north of the river. Marad says it's fallen under insurgent control. But not for long!"

Tired cheers; nods. The best she can hope for. "Erend will lead the way. We'll take it back and let those Loyalist bastards know that anyone who wants to hit the Claim has to get through the Vanguard, first."

More nodding, more enthusiasm. Erend frowns at her. "Why am I doing it?"

"Because I'm going to Sunfall," Ersa says firmly. "I don't care if I have to climb the walls of the Sun Ring myself."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Erend hisses, grabbing her arm.

"What do you think?" she snaps, yanking it away. Glares up at him. Closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "This is _not_ a mark on you or your strength or stamina," she says, looking at her sitting men, not looking at her seething brother. "I've been to Sunfall before. I can sneak in alone." This is a lie; she has no idea how to do that. Her plan stops when the walls come into view. She'll figure the rest out them. More: she doesn't _care_. She'll do something. She'll figure out something. No one will die in the Sun Ring ever again. Why else did she fight in this revolution?

"It's a mark on - fire and _spit_ , Ersa, it's a mark on your obsession!" Erend says, properly angry, worry painted on his face.

"So what if it is?" she snaps back. First Avad, now her brother… who needs them? Who needs it? Who needs any of it? She'll go into Sunfall. She'll find out what happens after that.

"It could get you killed, is what! You think I wanna lose you twice?"

"You think that matters to me?" Ersa softens as soon as she says it. "Of course it does," she admits, quieter, "but so does this. I've already survived Sunfall twice," she says, a soft attempt at bluster. She reaches up and places her hand on Erend's shoulder. "I'll be fine, baby brother."

"Let me come with you," says Other Erend, perched on one of the fallen Sawtooth's hind legs. Ersa isn't the only one to look at him in surprise.

Other Erend is a distant cousin: they share the same great-grandfather, also named Erend. But where Ersa and Erend are descended from a son, Other Erend is descended from a daughter. He'd grown up in a different home, a minor branch of the family. Despite sharing her brother's name, Other Erend is reedy, red haired; their shared blood earned him a spot in the Vanguard, but Ersa has little relationship with her cousin.

"I'm a good tracker," Other Erend says. "And my brother-in-law was killed in a raid a few years back. My sister's raising two sons on her own."

Ersa is not a particularly good tracker. "You've never mentioned you can track before."

"Klint doesn't like it," Other says calmly. "He's proud of being the best tracker in the Vanguard."

Ersa glances at the other men, none of whom jump to offer their services. Two people would be better than one, and even if Other is a mediocre tracker, he's probably still better than she is. Ersa nods. "Fair enough. Erend, you're in charge of these guys until we come back. We'll meet you at Unflinching Watch in a fortnight's time."

"And if you don't?" Erend asks unhappily.

"Then give it a third week before sending word to Meridian," Ersa says, trying to sound as though it's not at all a concern.

Other Erend peels off his heavier armor, leaving on the leather surcoat and his axe; Ersa also removes most of her armor, leaving it for the others to take care of. The less obviously Oseram they are in Sunfall, the better. She touches the spot between her breasts where her necklace usually falls, wishing she had it on.

No. She wants nothing to do with Avad, she reminds herself.

Erend puts his hand heavy on his namesake's shoulder. "You take care of Ersa, cuz," he says in a low voice that Ersa still picks up on, ignores only because her brother isn't putting up more of a fight for her to stay. "Or I'll kick your ass so hard, your grandma will wish she never left the clan."

"Okay," she says tiredly, both appreciating and annoyed by the sentiment. She doesn't hug Erend, not in front of her men, but she claps him on the arm. "Take care of yourself, baby brother. All of you better still be alive when we come back from Sunfall."

"We will," says Huld.

"Don't worry, Captain," Forn says. "We'll do you proud."


	26. three. (just like i told you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> transitional chapters are tough, yo.

 

_When the boys told you,_  
_You have the arms of a soldier,_  
_Those arms will never hold her again._  
_It's just like I told you  —_

_[…]_

_I hope life is good for you._

 

**three. (just like i told you)**

 

She runs north with a wild, fizzing energy. Walks, in truth, in part: Ersa sticks to the roads outside of Meridian, not wanting to risk crashing through unfamiliar jungles. There are others on the roads, the first few miles: she moves purposefully, trying not to look suspicious, be noticed. No one is chasing her yet.

In the months that followed, Ersa never could remember that first night. Her mind had been elsewhere.

On the moment — that first instant — the explosion, ricocheting through her stomach up through her throat, heart, down to her hips, not when she'd kissed him but when he'd kissed _back_. The sound he made. The hot shock of his hands and body. Earlier in the day! His hand brushing her hair. The sickly sweet scent of flowers. In Sunfall, walking together. _You're incredible_ , he'd told her once. She was!

Ersa leaves the road shortly after dawn — when had the sun rose? — and finds a place to rest where two trees had grown close enough together she can burrow herself in the undergrowth and grass beneath the roots. The space is too small for a Machine to accidentally trample on her or spot her; she is not hidden from men but Avad will surely —

She makes herself as comfortable as she can, peeling off her long Carja skirt to ball up as a pillow, and examines her farewell gift for the first time in daylight. Avad's present is a charm no larger than her the knuckle of her thumb, a sun made of a shard of amber and copper wire-thread rising into a sky cut from a pale blue stone, hanging from a silk thread of the same blue color.

Ersa does not worship the Sun. And yet — she smiles up at it for a long time before falling asleep.

In the late afternoon, Ersa wakes with a stiff neck and a more sober attitude, her shoulder swollen and purple. She's hungry and hot and sore, her throat tight from thirst, and her mooning from yesterday — this morning — was she fourteen? Giggling over some handsome boy who had smiled at her?

 _He didn't smile at you. You threw yourself at him._ But he did smile, too. A lot. Often. Too often, the idiot — she swallows, picking dirt and fallen leaves out of her hair. No more thinking about that. It isn't like she'll ever see him again.

 _Had you known, had you realized_ — realized what, exactly?

It's been too long, that's all. Too long since she's kissed anyone. Been with anyone. There had been Dorin, but he was years ago now, and a mistake. She'd sworn not to involve herself with the men she served with after, and hadn't. That had been five years ago.

It wasn't something that bothered her usually. It wasn't something she'd spent even a moment thinking about in the palace: Jaya and Ghada may like to gossip about men, but the idea…

( _Avad's thumb stroking at her cheek as she gasps in a breath —_ )

It's simply — simply a physical reaction. To not having kissed anyone in a long time.

She has far more important things to worry about.

Sobered, Ersa travels onwards.

 

 

She has Avad's luck and his sword, but not much else: her Carja clothing, an empty waterskin, and her slave's band. The sword is comforting at her side, but useless for hunting food, and won't be much better against a machine: swords are for killing men, and with her right arm nearly immobile, she's not certain how capable she'd be at even that. At least water is plentiful in the jungle, and it's not long until Ersa finds a stream. She washes herself and drinks her fill before refilling the waterskin, then follows the stream east, gathering hintergold for her pain.

She's starving by nightfall. Ersa isn't familiar enough with the plants of the jungle to risk eating them, and as she walks, north again, she debates using her skirt to make some sort of… trap? Net? Ersa's capable of long journeys, hard travel. But she's never been much of a hunter. She's always travelled with supplies.

She keeps an eye and ear out for signs of others. Twice she has to detour around herds: Striders once, Broadhorns the second time. She hears no sign of men — it's possible she could be taken by surprise, but unlikely: she isn't sure Kestrels would bother setting up an ambush when they could simply charge at her or shoot her from afar.

They _could_ shoot her from afar. Ersa has absolutely no armor. Her gut twists, and she thunders even faster through the trees. No. She should be the stealthy one — but then she's moving so _slowly_ , she's certain she'll be caught.

For hours, she varies between the two, hurrying and then freezing, hiding in the shadows like a hare, sprinting across open spaces. Now she's certain she's being pursued: a full day has passed, and her absence will have been noticed. The Carja must be searching for her. Chasing her. No — she's more than a day away from Meridian now. Will they chase her this far? A single slave?

Yes, they surely will. Helis said —

No, they won't. She can't be worth the effort.

Avad will certainly — do what? Protect her? Shelter her? No, he'll be accused of helping her. She sees him now, interrogated in a cell, the cell she'd been thrown into for defiance when she'd first arrived in Meridian, held for days without water until almost dead. He'll be questioned, despite his confidence in his safety —

She freezes. For a wild moment, she almost turns back.

And what about Aya? Everyone knows Ersa cares for Aya. Cares for Jaya and Ghada too. They'll be questioned. They'll be hurt. She must go back —

She can't go back. If she goes back, she'll be killed, and so will they for knowing her.

The hunger and pain and lack of sleep overtake her, muddying her thoughts. She tries to summon up her earlier giddiness, the day before's giddiness — to think of Avad, the feel of him against her —

Him bloodied in some small cell —

Ersa keeps moving long after the sun rises, feeling dizzy and anxious and hungry, all glee of leaving long gone, her thoughts still on Meridian. She picks at her cuff as she walks. Has tried and tried for months, knows the seam is too fine, locked tight, will not slide over her hand or break open: she yanks at it as though it's new, as though she's only now noticed it, trying to get it free, until her left wrist is chafed raw and bleeding.

She walks blindly north, detouring now and then when she sees or hears machines, and tucks herself in the lee of a boulder on a rise, half hidden by grass, in the hottest part of the afternoon.

When she wakes, she is cold and damp and it is a few hours before dawn. Her stomach is hollow and twisting, her lips and throat dry, but her mind feels sharper, more clear. Ersa drinks the last of her water and stretches slowly, examining stiff muscles and her broken shoulder. The swelling has gone down slightly, but the joint is purple yellow and difficult to move.

It's been two days. Three? And she has seen no sign of other men. Were she being followed, Ersa would have been caught by now. Especially yesterday, she had been rushing, not taking care to cover her path. Through luck or through Avad's protection, she hasn't been chased. If Avad has been punished, it has not been enough to break him. She is not being pursued.

Ersa leans against the boulder, sits and watches the world lighten around her. What if Avad has been caught? Punished? He's a prince, she reminds herself. He's a Carja prince, not her idiot… an idiot… he won't be killed. He'll protect Aya and the others from any questioning. He must. _Should_ she turn back? No. She can't. Even if she isn't killed, isn't caught, what can she do?

She has to trust him. Has to remember he's a prince.

She isn't sure when it became so easy to forget.

She wishes she hadn't kissed him.

Not because — not because of the kiss (the way it felt to dig her fingers into his hips, tongue over his teeth) — but it had been easier, before. Before she'd known it was a possibility, to think of him like —

But when had that all really started, anyway? The alley in Sunfall? Him reading to her? _You're incredible_? When had she started thinking of him as Avad, and not as _the Carja prince?_

It's over. She's never going to see him again. And she still has a long journey ahead of her.

When the sun is up, Ersa tucks her luck charm under her blouse and, stiff, starts walking north. She's gone two days without food, and she'll need to figure that out very soon: the terrain is giving way to brush and long grass, and she thinks she might have better luck foraging in terrain more similar to home. She has no idea how to even begin hunting with a sword, so fishing seems like a better plan: she needs to find water regardless. She will not think about Ava- about the _prince_ again.

This is a vow that Ersa does not keep.

Her days are long and tiring: skirting Machines and the few people she catches signs of, eating what little she can safely gather without means to hunt or fish. She heads steadily north, otherwise unsure of where she is — the Sundom gives way to canyon and endless, scrubby desert. She daydreams to pass the time, walking from dawn to dusk, the lack of food sapping her energy, speed, and mental clarity. She composes messages to Aya at first — Aya is safe, she is allowed to miss Aya. Plans ways to send letters through neutral traders. She isn't sure if Aya can read, but there must be some way to send a message. A goodbye. A parcel with something that Aya would recognize as from Ersa alone? She can't think of anything.

She can send a letter to Avad, somehow. He can pass it to Aya — she can send a message to him, too, although she doesn't know what it would be or say. What she wants to do leaves her feeling restless and … no, she won't think about him anymore. This new attraction. That's all it is, attraction. If she wants that, there's men when she gets home, better looking, stronger men. Certainly. Who can fight and take care of themselves, not read and drag her around to listen to poetry in Sunfall…

And then she's imagining it again. The kiss. The watchtower in Sunfall they'd climbed on their day together, looking for the silhouette of the Tallneck of the Dunes.

Something is seriously wrong with her.

 

 

Four days into Ersa's journey north, she finds the main road stretching from the Sundom to the Claim: a relic of the times when the Carja and Oseram still traded peacefully with one another, and now the main artery of the Carja slave trade. She'd travelled it before, in the opposite direction. It's good news, but sobering. No more crashing through the wilds: these roads are well used, and she's weak, injured, and hasn't eaten in days.

With safety a concern, her mind wanders less. Ersa sticks to the road, alert at every bend and rise for Carja. When night falls, she counts five hundred paces off the road before searching for a place to camp; the same the night after, as the mountains loom into view and the air begins to cool.

A week after leaving Meridian behind for good, Ersa sees the Carja.

That they are Carja, she has no doubt: the afternoon sun is high and she's moving slowly, alert for glints of metal by the road, which has turned narrow and rocky along the edges of mountains. Her first instinct is to get off the road, to hide: she scrambles up the embankment, wincing in pain from the need to use both her arms. Stunted, brittle trees dig into the rocky soil; she climbs up one next, the trunk halfway to horizontal: an easy climb. Out of sight, she considers her options.

The party is a mile or so down the road, which curves along a fast-moving, narrow river. If Ersa is close enough to see them, they could see her, but she doesn't think so: she has the sun at her back, and they're walking into it, slow and in a loose formation. She counts seven, armor glinting on the two in front.

Seven is too many to fight: she'll have to find a better hiding spot, lower to the ground. There are boulders and crevices; the group isn't moving quickly or alertly: if she stays still… stays quiet…

Her heart is pounding, echoing in her chest, her mouth dry and sticky from a sudden thirst. Carefully, she slides back down the tree. She can't see the men now: they're hidden by the same rise she's behind. Should she risk climbing? Running? After a week on the road, a prince's sword at her hip, she has no chance of passing for a casual traveller. Best to stay where she is, and be ready to run. She slides down and around a large-ish rock: sitting with her knees drawn behind it, up above the road, she's fairly confident she's hidden… as long as no one looks for her.

Ersa waits and hears nothing. Shouldn't she have heard them pass by now? This is an ambush; she's been caught. She should have heard them. She should fight; maybe she can gather stones to throw… throw left-handed? No. Can she dislodge a boulder? And roll them with it if they're nice enough to stand fully still? No. But she has height on her side: she can hold the high ground. Hold them off. Seven men. She hasn't eaten in days, but… if they come at her one, even two at a time…

She clutches the necklace and counts to one hundred, and then again, listening for any rustling in the grass, any stones scuffed by steel boots…

Just when Ersa is about to jump up out of nerve alone, prepared for her last stand, she hears the crunching of boots on the road below her. She leans her head back against the stone, trying to catch her breath silently. Not an ambush. Not an ambush.

The Carja walk silently: she hears heavy metal boots against the dirt and gravel, and the softer tread of leather sandals. Not an ambush. They're just walking slowly.

She starts to count to one hundred again, but when she reaches fifty-six, a child says: "I'm _tired_ ," his voice hoarse and tired and near tears. "Mother, I'm _tired._ "

And her stomach twists into her gut.

"I told you to shut that boy up! If he speaks again, I'll kill him now!"

A woman begins to hush the child frantically; Ersa hears the boy whimper, a choked back cry —

And she's already on her feet, drawing Avad's sword. She hesitates for just a moment, above, her back to the slavers. Stay where she is. She's so close to home.

Like it's even an option.

Ersa peeks carefully over the rise. Good news and bad. Only three of the party are Carja, but they are armored soldiers in full kit: Bow, axes, and swords. The other four are captives, arms bound. A boy, too small for her to have seen him from afar, clings to one of the women: his mother. Aside from her, there are two other women and one man in furs. Two of the Carja lead the group, and the third guards the rear. Ersa has height, surprise, and a broken shoulder.

She grimaces, touches the necklace for luck, and climbs as quietly as possible down the slope.

Ersa catches the rearguard by surprise, slipping quickly up behind him: grabbing him, right hand over his mouth, stabbing him through the neck just as he starts to turn. He makes a choked sound, cries out: now, chaos. One of the women screams: the little boy runs. The first guard barrels through the prisoners towards Ersa, and one of the women grabs him with chained hands, wrapping herself and the chain around him so he cannot draw his arms — Ersa knocks the other woman aside, as the third Carja is reaching for his bow. He takes an arrow, notches it, draws — she cries out, some noise she is barely aware of. Elbows him, the bow, right handed. Pain and blood. Left handed she strikes at him, a bad job, clumsy — tangled up against him, she's struck by something solid from behind, and then she's sitting astride the Carja, smashing her elbow in his face, as the male prisoner takes her sword and stabs the guard through the neck.

He helps her to her feet and off the corpse, grinning. Ersa stands, immediately staggers, losing her balance. "You alright?" The man's expression fades, and he helps her sit against the embankment. "That was some rescue," he says.

Spots and pain and the coppery taste of blood, her whole face hot and slick. Ersa looks past the man: the second guard is lying splayed on the road, his face a bloody mass. One of the women going through pockets. The little boy has returned, sobbing; his mother sits on the ground, dazed. Then Ersa loses her vision for a moment, her hearing fading out and back in. "The arrow," she remembers. Brings her hand to her neck, gropes around.

"I don't think it's too deep," the man says. He peels moss from the ground, presses it against the right side of her neck, which is a throbbing, hot mess of blood. "He hadn't drawn all the way."

She remembers now, seeing the arrow, as if inching past her. She holds the moss in place, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "I'm fine," she tells herself, her fingers sticky with blood.

"Do any of you have anything for our savior?" the man calls. No one replies. "Nora women," he spits. "Not saying shit to those Carja, I get, but they won't say a word to me, either. I'm Hatuk."

"You're Banuk," Ersa guesses.

"Aye. Was ranging south after a pair of Ravagers — shameful to get caught, but not as shameful as those bastards, trapping me in the night. I'd had a few drinks in celebration of my kill," Hatuk says.

Ersa keeps her eyes closed, her head pounding, for a moment. She opens them when she hears Hatuk say "thanks," and looks up to see one of the Nora women, her lips pursed, offering a handful more of moss and some herbs.

"Thank you," she says. The woman has removed her chains, and peels the first bundle of moss from Ersa's neck: they're brown and matted with blood. The Nora applies the new moss and herbs with careful hands, and Hatuk goes towards the other Nora, who have discovered the keys to their shackles. He unbinds himself, and joins in the looting of the Carja bodies.

Ersa's eyes sink closed again. "What's your name?" she asks her healer, curious if she'll get an answer.

The woman frowns, looks up at the sky, and moves her lips silently. "Yara," she whispers.

"Ho! You do have names!" Hatuk calls.

"All-Mother thank you for returning our lives to us," Yara says with more strength, avoiding eye contact.

When the bodies have been looted and Ersa's bleeding has stopped, the group moves the corpses off the road and up the rise she had hidden in, out of sight of casual passerby, and then convene together at the edge of the river.

Ersa explains that she's an escaped Oseram slave from Meridian, on her way back north. Hatuk, still the spokesman of the group, tells the rest of the story: he'd been captured drunk as the Carja left the sacred lands. Yara, Talara, and Oana and her son had been taken captive a few days prior; there had been two other Nora in the party at the time, Oana's mate included. No one elaborated what had happened to him, and Ersa doesn't ask.

"This is the main road to Sunfall," Ersa says, sketching out a map in the dirt. The guards had had food, and she eats gratefully, trying not to eat more than her share. "You'll want to leave it as soon as possible, even heading back the way you came."

Oana laughs almost hysterically, clutching her son to her. "How can we go back? We are now outcasts!"

"The Sacred Lands are lost to us," Talara says. "We may as well have been killed by the slavers."

Ersa catches Hatuk's eye. He shrugs.

"Okay, well, I'm headed north to the Claim. You can come with me," she says. It's a larger group than she'd like, and there's a child, but they now have plenty of weapons. It might be a better plan anyway: the fight has inflamed her shoulder again, and Ersa isn't sure how much longer she can keep ignoring it. If she runs into more slavers, she really may have to ignore them.

"The Oseram are machine-worshipping followers of the metal devil!" Talara hisses.

"Thanks, Ersa, for saving us," Ersa mutters, rather stung. Are all Nora like this? Not exactly friendly, are they?

"The Banuk don't need to rely on machine parts for our strength," Hatuk says jovially. Ersa narrows her eyes at him. "If you won't go back to your Sacred Lands, you can go north with me."

In the morning, Ersa climbs up the rise to place the largest rocks she can find over the Carja's chests. Her arm is throbbing with pain to the point that she has to do it left handed, without any help from her right, rolling the stones in the dirt to move them to the corpses. It's not a cairn, and they don't deserve it, but it makes her feel a little less guilty. It isn't that Ersa regrets her part in killing these men, but…

When she climbs back down the embankment, Yara is watching her carefully. "Hey," Ersa says. "When I was first taken captive, there was a Nora woman there with me. She had braided dark hair and medium skin — like Hatuk's, I think." It's all a bit blurry in her memory: the Sun Ring, the sand, the Kestrels. The woman's back against hers, the woman's blood on Ersa's skin. "Do you know anyone like that?"

"Many Nora have been killed in the Red Raids," Yara says sadly.

The party divides up the spoils from the Carja, the Nora women claiming the bows and Hatuk two swords and an axe. Ersa would take one of the polearms normally, but in her current state, she has no chance of wielding it: best to stick to Avad's sword, which she can use one handed. For the same reason, she takes more than her share of the remaining food. Yara and Oana help her gather medicinal herbs for her wounds and fresh moss for her neck, and they part ways at midmorning: Ersa traveling north and the others east.

They don't share a sentimental goodbye, but she does turn after a few minutes, watching their shapes recede into the sunlight.

 

 

Four days later, Ersa is out of food. It has been uphill for two days, cold at night even in midsummer: even her lack of food doesn't upset her as the first peak of the Claim begins to come into view. She skips rest to reorient herself, cutting west half a day before resuming north. She's no longer hungry, no longer tired or in pain: the ridge is distinctive, sharpening into view, the mountain behind it a signpost for home.

Two days after that, she's changed her mind about not being hungry, still moving quick as she can: she knows this rise. She knows that cliff. She doesn't need food or sleep, she knows the smell of the plants around her, the distinctive tang of pine and evergreen bushes —

And then there's a shrieking whistle and she swears and whips around when a flare lands and ignites several yards away from her. She looks for the rise the warning shot was fired from and spots it: the tell-tale glint of burnished steel plate.

One of the figures stands up. "You there! You're trespassing in Oseram lands!"

Ersa grins and cups her hands around her mouth. "You call that aiming?" she shouts.

"That was a warning shot!"

"Maybe if I was standing half a chain south, I would have been warned!"

More figures pop up on the rise; she sees them talking as she strides towards them. They're confused. They should be: Carja don't come up to the Claim alone, or yell back. Ersa should know.

"What the hell kind of guard is this?" she yells from the bottom of the hill. "I would have shot me eight times by now."

Her steps are strong and purposeful, and even the rush uphill doesn't seem to affect her. It's like she's slept for weeks, eaten nothing but banquets.

She's close enough now to hear the murmuring. " _Ersa?_ " someone says, not sounding confident. Someone she knows. Someone she knows well. She's grinning, fizzy, her heart burning and pounding, dizzy like she's bleeding out again, a different dizziness.

"She's dead." That's another voice she recognizes: Forn, from the old group.

"Am I?" she huffs, cresting the top of the rise. Five men, all in Oseram steel, Oseram armor, Oseram linens and red and yellow. Forn, from her unit. Three men she doesn't know. One holding the flare launcher.

The fifth —

She'd thought Erend would look different, somehow. Older, changed, taller or shorter: a different physical form with a different haircut. Not pale and wide-eyed and exactly the same, shaken and then yelling hoarsely as Ersa uses the very last of her second wind to throw herself bodily into her baby brother's embrace.


	27. three. (of course you've changed, you've changed)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSITIONAL CHAPTERS  
> ARE TOUGH  
> YO

It's all a blur.

There is Erend, there is her little baby brother, there are the other men, all gathered around, clapping arms, embracing her one by one. Most of them strangers. Erend says over and over: "I thought you were dead!" and "I didn't recognize you!", and the first time Ersa teases him back, replies in a giddy rush, "I can't believe you thought some damn Carja would —" and his face falls so quickly she has to apologize. Hug him again. Had they been this touchy before? When she embraces him he lifts her easily and she likes it, hates it. When did he get so much bigger than her, exactly?

"You look so different!" says Gorn, slapping her back.

"It's these clothes." She picks at her stained overshirt, dirty with dried blood and dirt and sweat.

"How did you survive? How did you get here?" says one of the other men, Erend's arm slung heavy around her shoulders.

"I survived the Sun Ring —" breaks off. How to say it all? What to say? There are more questions, more hands patting at her, embracing her, laughing — She has questions, too, but feels dizzy. With it all. "I survived the Sun-Ring. I was taken captive, and then I escaped. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for slavers," Erend says. "How did you survive?"

"I just - did," she says. She wants to know what her brother has been up to as much as he wants to know about her, but Ersa is outnumbered. How did she survive the ring? What has she been doing for the past year? Why is she dressed like a Carja? What happened to her neck? Her arm? Why is her hair now long enough to plait? Smattered with praise, exultations. You're alive! I can't believe it!

"I need to check in with the Aldermen," Ersa says at last. She's exhausted as her initial giddiness fades, weeks of hard travel and not enough food catching up to her now, and she doesn't know yet how to answer these questions in detail. It seems wise not to mention the kiss — to mention Avad, that is. That she escaped by being friendly with a Carja prince.

"Right," Erend says loudly. "Bug off, guys. Me and Ersa have to go into town."

With one more round of congratulations, heavy thumps to the back, Ersa and her brother are walking down the hill towards the village, which is just within sight: a few round shapes, dark smoke from the central forge. She sighs, a bit too loudly.

"Hah!" Erend laughs, nudges against her with his elbow. "I thought you looked kind of worn out."

"I'm not," she says stubbornly. Turns and waves back up the hill; the men are watching still. Calls up to them: "You're facing the wrong way, bungheads!" They hoot and laugh and back away from the ridge, and Ersa drops her arm. "I am," she admits.

"I knew it," Erend laughs, and then grins down at her. "No one sane _wants_ to talk with the Aldermen; figured you wanted a quick escape." She nods in admission, fighting a smile. "I can't — I can't believe you're here!" he continues. "I seriously —" still grinning, he shakes his head, unable to find the words.

She meets his smile. "I'm glad to see you too, little brother. I'm just tired."

"I'll bet! I didn't recognize you when you came marching up to us."

"Forgot what I looked like so quickly?" Ersa teases; Erend's face immediately falls in guilt and she shoves him gently. "Kidding. I'm just glad you didn't —" the past year, when she'd allowed herself to think of him, it had always been him in a stupor or him dead as well. As much as she'd told herself he was alright… she shoves him affectionately. "What were you doing on that hill so close to home?"

Erend explains as they walk to the village. The Freebooter unit they had belonged to hadn't survived the massacre. With Ersa, Alin, and Steel captured and four others killed in the attack, only Erend, Darl, and Gorn had been left, and Erend only because he had been on a scouting mission. Darl had returned north to his clan after the attacks, and Erend and Hurd had both joined the town guard after a few months: Erend was vague as to what he did until that time, and Ersa decided not to press him on it. Their village was far enough out of the way that Carja slavers weren't a major concern: Mostly, they camped out on the ridge and fought Watchers and the occasional Longleg, returning home every few weeks to spend their wages in the village's pubs. He finishes his story with, "but who cares? Shit, Ersa. I can't believe — you're really here! You're still alive! How did you make it? No one ever makes it back."

"I just… did," she says. "I just survived."

"You say it like it's nothing," Erend says admirably.

"It wasn't nothing." But Ersa isn't sure what it was. There was luck, but there was also Avad. She would have gotten out on her own — she's still certain of that — but so soon? So easily? And there was Aya, keeping her spirits up. And — the Sun Ring. That wasn't entirely luck, but it also wasn't just skill and ability. "I missed you, baby brother," she says.

"I missed you," Erend says, his voice thick. "You don't know how much. I really thought — I should have believed in you. I can't believe you're _alive._ "

"You've said that already," she laughs.

"Get used to it," he says, "I'm probably going to say it a lot for the next few weeks." Ersa nudges at him again, grinning.

The village is — the village is the _same_. Exactly the same. So much so that it jars at Ersa: how can it be the same? The high wall of piled slate, the market to the right just outside, geese underfoot, women arguing: Long haired wives and short haired young women, men in heavy armor. The smell is the same: stone and mud and steel and sweat, heavy, familiar, comforting. Shouts and turning wheels. Houses piled up against the gate. The village had been built first in a valley, but had overtaken it and the walls: there were now two walls ringing the town, an outer one surrounding both the valley and the hills, and an inner encircling the original village. The outer is a mess of round houses and shops and forges, patchy gardens filling whatever empty space remains; the inner wall is mostly homes, clan houses and the manses of the wealthy. There are five main families; six if you still count Ersa and Erend's.

Nothing has changed. Banners hanging from houses — the same cloth and colors. Plants - the same height as before. The piles in the market stalls — the same. It can't be true, Ersa knows that. There are changes she isn't noticing. But it's eerie, almost frightening, how little has changed after a year. Somehow she feels as though things should have changed, should be… different. Unrecognizable. The way she must be.

But she hasn't changed _that_ much. As they make their way through the town, Ersa is recognized — Erend delights in it, shouting at acquaintances and friends and distant cousins, whoever they pass, announcing her return. She's hugged and clapped on the arm and back, and some of them she is happy to see — many of them she's happy to see — her old training mates, neighbors, a vegetable seller, a linen seller, Forgemen —

"I can't believe it's really you!" Marsa Alewife is saying, a gray haired aunt, hugging Ersa for the third time.

"It's so good to see you again," Ersa says, returning the embrace. She doesn't think she's spoken to Marsa since she was still in braids. "I have to go to the forge, but we'll speak again soon."

"To the forge?" Erend asks in an undertone, using his bulk to push them through the crowd, everyone wanting to touch Ersa's hand or back, more than one hitting her broken shoulder instead. She's starting to feel exhausted and tense, but word is spreading. She's never heard her name from so many lips, and it's harder to keep smiling, grasping the hands of strangers. It's probably not even personal. Everyone knows someone who has been killed by the Carja. No one knows any who have come home.

"I need to get this thing off me," she says, raising her arm to reveal the cuff. Erend's expression darkens. He pushes his way through the crowd, yelling out the occasional sorry, and all Ersa has to do is keep up, for once not ruing her brother's height over her.

The village has a dozen forges, from the grand ironworks to the smelters to individual forges for nails, weapons, tools, and so on: Erend wisely takes them to one of the small ones, dedicated to fine metalwork used in decoration and jewelry and so much less crowded than the others will surely be.

Warbed Forgeman runs the shop. Ersa knows him only by sight, but his eyes widen when he sees her and Erend approach; he looks up to the cloudy sky, then spits in the mud. "By the Forge, Ersa Bladewife," he says. "You're dead and buried."

"Not yet," she says, forcing a smile at the misnaming. She _is_ a Bladewife, legally, but hearing it is like a sting: it's been almost a year since she heard the name last.

"My sister needs a chain removed," Erend interrupts, and she's glad of it, holding out her arm for the Forgeman to examine. He takes it roughly in his own calloused hands, searching for the seam.

"The Carja make pretty work, but not strong," he says, twisting Ersa's arm. She winces.

"Hey," Erend says.

"It's fine. Can you get it off?"

"Aye," the Forgeman says. "I'll find the tools."

His shop is small and hot, a tiny front room of swept earth floors and stone walls, delicate chains hanging as decoration and examples of his work, a heavy leather cloth dividing the front from the workrooms in the back and muffling the sound of hammers. Erend leans against a wall, and Ersa closes her eyes for a moment. The smell — iron and sweat and mud. It's so familiar that it's painful, sharp and heavy in her nose. She's not used to it, the earthy smell of Oseram towns. Meridian had smelled of brick and spice and… (something sweet, clean, warm under her fingers… no, now is not the time to remember).

"You okay?" Erend asks.

"It's been a long journey," she says after a moment of debate. "I didn't think I'd be so tired."

"Hell, if tired's all you are —" he sounds ready to tell her how shocked he is to see her alive again. Ersa snorts.

"It's not all I am. My arm is broken, and I'm starving."

"But you're alive!" Erend grins, and she laughs, because she'd known he would finish with that.

"I'll be more alive when I've slept and eaten. And bathed," she adds on reflection.

The shop has no front door, just another leather curtain, and it is pushed aside with the accompanying sound of boots in mud. "Warbed, are you here? — Ersa Bladewife!"

 _Fire and Spit._ Dorin Freebooter steps into the shop. He smiles at her, his eyes bright even in the dim light of the store, his dark hair mussed just so, his beard accentuating the shape of his face —

She smiles up at him. He's taller than even Erend, broad shouldered and powerfully built, easily the most handsome man Ersa has ever known; funny and outgoing and skilled with a blade… "Ersa Freebooter," she corrects, smiling.

"How could I forget? The whole town is talking about you!" Dorin shakes his head. "I knew everyone was foolish to think you dead."

Ersa's flattered — struggles not to smile. Erend clears his throat loudly. "Oh, yeah? You know Ersa that well?" he asks snidely.

"Erend," Ersa says with too much heat.

"How's your wife?" Erend continues. "And your son?" Erend's remarks, petty as they are, do a good job at calming the sudden fizz in Ersa's stomach. That's right. Dorin's wife had been pregnant when Ersa had been taken. Wife. He has a wife. And a son. Her smile fades.

Dorin smiles at Ersa as if to say _little brothers, eh?_ "I'm glad to see you. We'll have to catch up over drinks!"

"Sure. You can tell me about your family," she says sourly.

"Don't be like that," Dorin says. "You know I had to marry someone." _Aye, but not me_ , Ersa thinks. It's been a long time since she's spoken to Dorin, really. Not since he had announced his engagement. "I've missed you while you've been away," Dorin says seriously.

Why must he be so… so damn good looking? Luckily, Warbed Forgeman returns from the back room with his tools. "Dorin! Wasn't expecting you until next week," he says.

"I wanted to check on my order," he says. "Jasp has been after me to get that necklace fixed; you know how women are." He smiles over at Ersa as he talks about his wife, but her mood has soured.

"Aye, never happy. You'd think women would be made of stiffer metal, but were they, I'd be out a trade," Warbed laughs. The two discuss the specifics of the necklace, broaches, and arm cuffs that Jasp Guardwife is after as Ersa and Erend wait; it doesn't take long. Dorin buys a set of hair pins on display to appease his wife, and Ersa is reminding himself that he may be handsome, may have been very skilled with his hands, may be tall and strong and broad, but he did _not_ care for her, and if he had, it wasn't…

"Here," Dorin says, holding one of the silver pins out to Ersa. "On occasion of your return from the savage south."

The pin is long and silver, carved with an intricate design of diamond shapes, a tiny onyx at the tip. "Not really my thing," she says, fighting a flattered smile.

"I insist," Dorin says, and tucks it into her matted hair. "I like the longer hair on you," he says. She hates herself for feeling her face warm, finding it difficult to meet his eyes. The first man she'd ever kissed was Dorin. He'd kissed her, really, one evening after training. Told her sweet things and…

"Bye," she mutters.

"See you around," he says. "Erend," he adds with a nod.

Erend doesn't return his farewell, glowering at the doorway long after Dorin leaves. Ersa is distracted the whole time Warbed picks at her cuff's hinge, only coming back to herself when it springs open, revealing moon pale, greenish skin.

"From the metal," Warbed says. "It'll wash after a few days."

"I could kiss you," Ersa says happily, rubbing her left wrist as best she can with her swollen right arm. Her arm feels suddenly light, the air cold and sharp against the newly exposed skin. She could spit on the cuff, lying open on the counter. "Toss it in the forge for me?"

"It's good bronze," Warbed says. "Let me keep it and I'll call my work paid for."

Ersa and Erend emerge back onto the street, blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight, Ersa still rubbing her arm obsessively. "Have you been staying at the home?" she asks.

"Aye," Erend admits reluctantly. "Not often. How long are you going to wear that?"

She remembers, and touches the hairpin. It's tucked up into her hair, resting on her ear, doing nothing to hold or maintain her hair; she leaves it be. "I'm cutting it short again as soon as I can," she says.

"Good."

"Give it a rest," she says. In unspoken agreement, they begin to head for the inner wall, the clan homes behind it.

"He's an ass. He treated you like dung."

"You think I don't know that?" Ersa snaps, immediately smiling as she's greeted by name by people she doesn't recognize, lifting her hand in greeting.

"Just because he's _good looking_ ," Erend continues.

"Can I be back from the dead for a day before you start acting like my snippy baby brother?" she asks.

"And he's married now," says Erend.

She groans and pulls the pretty hairpin out from her hair, stabbing it towards Erend. "Here! Take it! Give it to some girl if you have one!"

"I'm just saying! I don't like that asshole. He's not good enough for you."

"I'll decide that on my own," Ersa says, resisting the urge to stab Erend with the pin. She tries in vain to lift her right arm high enough to twist her hair into some sort of order that a pin can be used to hold in place; she winces, unable to lift her elbow more than a few inches. It puts a stop to their bickering, at least.

"You need a healer," Erend says.

"I know." Ersa swears to herself, sharp pain stabbing through her. "A healer and about a week of sleep." She touches her right arm gingerly, sucking in a sharp breath when her fingers go too high: her shoulder and half her bicep are white-hot with pain to the touch.

"I've been staying at the house sometimes," Erend says. "Dad's the same. But he doesn't go upstairs anymore, so it's not too bad."

"Where does he sleep?"

"In front of the hearth, in his chair." For a moment they walk in silence, through the narrow, muddy streets. Dodging the occasional hand cart. This is a residential area, and so quieter. "I had to hire a woman to… clean him up," Erend admits quietly.

Ersa groans. "Ugh. He doesn't …?"

"He'll still piss in a bucket, but…"

She groans again. The house comes into view.

At four stories, the clan home is one of the town's largest: Ersa's great-great-great grandfather had been one of the town's founders a hundred years ago. Jyk Forgeman had discovered the Metal World ruins nearby, and banded together with Ernas Woodsman and Jarl Delverson to found the community, the three of them joining as Deepvein's first Aldermen. But Ernas's line tended towards drink and open pockets. The house was about all that remained of the clan.

Even when Ersa was small, the house had been too large for the dozen or so who remained: unmarried or widowed women, a few male cousins, her parents, Erend, and herself. And even she'd left at fourteen. By now, her father was the only one who still lived there. It was a grand house, but in her memories, also a dark and lonely one.

Erend leads the way through the grand door. It's frightening, how unchanged it is.

The house is built in the typical style: the ground floor open and round, a grand hearth in the middle, the kitchen and larder and woodshed behind. Stairs curve along the wall to the second floor — the clan head's sleeping room and the sleeping room for the other men of the house. The third floor contained a large sleep room for the women and children; the final floor was storage. The house was somewhat cone shaped, so each floor was smaller than the one below it, with narrow windows covered in waxed cloth letting in only dim light.

It smelt like mold, sick, and ale. The fire was in embers, the lanterns unlit: Ersa froze reflexively at the sight of the hunched figure in the chair before the hearth.

"Dad!" Erend says, his voice cheerful and loud and forced. "Guess what? Guess who came back?"

No response. Was he dead? Passed out? Sick? The fear is reflexive and immediate; Ersa is frozen in place.

"It's Ersa!" Erend continues loudly. "She's alive!"

She tells herself to move until she feels herself do it. "Father," she says. Takes a step, and then another, until she's before the fire. Before the chair.

Ernas Landholder has his son's blue eyes and frame, but a hard life and hard drinking has shrunken him down to sinew and bones.; his gaze has none of Erend's warmth. He looks hazily up at Ersa. She tries and fails to smile. Something shifts in Ernas's gaze; a flicker of recognition. "Opal?" he rasps.

The smile she'd mustered falters. "Ersa," she says. "Your daughter."

"Oh," Ernas says. He looks back to the dying fire. "More ale," he says.

Her heart falls in her chest; her stomach jolts sickly. She finds herself in the kitchen without quite remembering turning to walk there; leans her elbow on the dusty counter, her right arm dangling at her side. When she was small, there were always aunts in the kitchen, preparing food and gossiping. She spies a single lumpy potato in a basket on the floor.

Erend follows her. "That was a pretty long conversation for him, lately," he says with a grim reassurance.

"He thought I was mother," Ersa says, dropping her forehead into her palm. It shouldn't hurt, it shouldn't sting, she shouldn't have expected any better or any different. Not after all this time. Still. Then the absurdity hits her: all those strangers smiling at her, patting her back for being alive. And here in her own home, her own blood…

"We'll find some other house to stay at," Erend says loyally.

"Don't be stupid," she says, wishing there was another house. "I'll be fine here."

Erend tells her again how happy he is that she's alive, and leaves to find a healer. Ersa ventures back into the main room, creeping quietly out of her father's line of vision so he doesn't see she has no ale and scream at her for it — stupid. Stupid. He probably forgot she's even here. She shouldn't hide — but she does, until she's up the stairs.

The door to the men's quarters is open, and she peers in to see a single bed with blankets, up under the window. The rest bare and dusty. She goes into her parent's room instead: much smaller, but meant to be grand, with carved wood and a massive bed taking up most of the room. It is made, and untouched, the blankets a dim yellow from the cloth window.

She's in here for the mirror. It had been a present for her great-grandmother's marriage to her great-grandfather: an expensive bride gift, given a place of honor. Most mirrors are small, held in the palm of your hand: this one is half as large as Ersa is, made of a single plane of carefully polished metal, so thin and worked that it provides a near perfect reflection. It's covered in dust, and she wipes it with the hem of her shirt until she can see herself.

Or: see _someone_.

It's been well over a year since Ersa has seen herself reflected in anything, and she doesn't know herself at all now. Lack of food and too much travel has brought out angles in her face she doesn't recognize, her hair halfway to her shoulders, dirty Carja linen blouse and leggings, the hairpin looking absurd in her matted hair. She pulls it out and tosses it onto the bed, forgotten, still examining herself closely. The arrow wound on her neck is healing, but looks as though it will scar: she has a line on her forehead, temple to crown, she doesn't even remember gaining, but already white and healed. She peels off her clothing slowly, painfully, entranced: now in her underthings, she turns, examining the jut of her ribs and hips, searching for scars kept out of her sight. Stares hypnotized at her shoulder, purple and fat and ugly, red streaking to her elbow, the other bruises marking her body.

She doesn't know herself at all. She wouldn't have recognized herself either. How is she so different, and everything else so silently unchanged?

She's still wearing the necklace, Avad's necklace, with her chemise and undershorts. The charm shines white and pink, clean and pretty against her bruises and bones. She's never felt less pretty in her life. She pulls off the necklace and pulls back on her blouse and skirt, leaving the hairpin forgotten and creeping up to the third and then the fourth floor.

Her mattress is still there under the eaves, where she'd set up a private sleeproom to escape her father's notice and command, years and years ago. She knows at once she'll sleep here again, hidden, even with the rest of the huge house free for the claiming. Ersa hangs the necklace on a nail so it lies swaying over her bed, catching the light from a crack in the wall —

Dorin's crooked smile in her head. The faces of all the people she knows, the smells she knows, the sounds she knows. Bickering with her brother, now crouched in her attic, as if ten years have never happened, as if a day ago she was not asleep in the grass, a week ago she was not in the Sundom, a month ago she was not a slave — it is silent here, a muffled, heavy silence that would swallow even a scream. So silent that it is as though no time _has_ passed, as though it's all a dream, all unchanged, exactly the same as it has always been. She is Ersa Freebooter. Ersa Bladewife. Ersa Ernasdaughter, in her attic, her and her brother together against the rest. None of the rest, nothing of the rest, has happened. None of it is true. She lives in this house, she'll take care of her ailing father, she'll go unmarried until she dies. Ersa Ernasdaughter. It was all just a dream.

Except for the throbbing heat of her shoulder. Except for the hypnotic swing of Avad's necklace, her good luck charm.

Distantly, a thousand miles from here, she hears the great door close. Erend and the healer. On a strange impulse, Ersa takes the necklace in hand, presses the charm to her lips — cool metal — and lets it sway back into place before she climbs down the stairs to meet them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have you ever returned from a vacation and then the next day been like "did it even happen? nothing is different at all." that.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Factions of the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11205444) by [LarissaFae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarissaFae/pseuds/LarissaFae)




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